So you are arguing that criminals are more likely to be violent towards humans than non-criminals? That’s an an intriguing position, but I doubt too many people on The Dope will agree with it.
Seriously though, can you name me any criminal act at all for which this isn’t true? For example, are people who are convicted of smoking cannabis also not more likely to be violent towards humans? Or people convicted of driving unsafe motor vehicles? People convicted of illegal gambling? People convicted of soliciting prostitutes? You have a self-selected sample of people who are prepared to commit a criminal offence. And then further research reveals that they are more likely to commit other, unrelated, criminal offences. I’m shocked I tell ya, shocked. That is such a surprising result.
Forgive my sarcasm, but this is about the weakest argument I’ve ever heard.
And I want to see the evidence of this. Not evidence that people who commit criminal acts are more likely to commit criminal acts, but that the treatment of animals is an indicator. For example, someone who burns a puppy with a cigarette will be convicted of a crime, as will someone who cuts off a cat’s tail with a knife. Yet farmers burn animals with hot iron and cut their tails off all the time. Many farmers have perpetrated those acts on literally hundreds of thousands of animals. The acts are precisely the same. the treatment of the animals is precisely the same, but it’s not illegal for a farmer to do it. So, does that mean that farmers are more likely to be violent towards humans than anybody else? Or does that seem like an unreasonable position to adopt?
And if it is an unreasonable position, do you think that maybe the difference lies in the legality and social acceptability, and that it’s more reasonable to conclude that criminals and those who have limited respect for social convention are more violent than non-criminals and pillars of society? That it is the nature of people who are prepared to commit criminal acts that accounts for the difference, not the act?
One simple way to falsify this hypothesis would be to look at other acts of morality that vary in their legality between jurisdictions. For example, do people convicted of patronising gaming houses in states where it is illegal have higher rates of violence than people who visit Reno? Do people who are convicted of soliciting in states where prostitution is illegal have higher rates of violence than people who visit legal brothels in Texas? I don’t have that evidence, but I assume you will concede that it is very likely to be the case. That’s because we know that the type of mindset that disregards laws and social conventions in one area is the type of mindset that is likely to disregard laws and social conventions in other areas. Or conversely, people who are scrupulously law abiding in all other areas are hardly likely to be violent criminals.
There is no such thing as an unbiased study, because there is no such thing as unbiased observation. If you dismiss biased studies, you dismiss everything.
Accuracy is what matters, not bias. Do the studies propose testable hypotheses? Are they tested correctly? Have they been replicated? If so, science. If not, journalism.
It isn’t just competitive games. Who didn’t know at least one controller-hurling kid who’d flip out over the jump in World 8-2 or some other Nintendo-hard situation?
The whole “video games turn people violent” idea is spurious. It’s just modern day’s version of “Dungeons & Dragons makes people crazy”, “Metal makes you kill yourself”, “Rock makes you promiscuous” etc… It’s all jazz music and cubism, man.
To me, the notion comes entirely from the fact that, when people go apewire for seemingly no reason, we rational folks try to understand why, if only to avoid it in the future. Klebold and whatshisname listened to a lot of Manson and played video games, well, that must be why they shot up their school !
Which of course ignores the rather insignificant detail that thousands if not millions of kids all over the world listen to a lot of Manson and play brutal video games, and never shot up nothin’ that wasn’t yelling “Ach, mein Führer !” at them from a TV screen. To me, the only correlation factor is that psychos will possibly be drawn to violent art forms or activities, and as such those are more likely to be found in the vicinity of identified psychos. But that’s quite far from “violent art forms turned them psycho”, neh ?
As for criminals, they didn’t turn criminals from playing GTA and thinking “whaaa, this is the LIFE, man !”. If anything, GTA teaches that criminals have *very *short lifespans :). Criminals turn criminals because they have poor impulse control & live in poverty amongst other criminals. GTA is a non factor.
Yes, but they don’t do it for kicks or out of cruelty. Well, except perhaps the branding, do people still do that ? What’s wrong with ID tattoos ?
Exactly. So the action itself isn’t in any way indicative. It is the motivation that is indicative.
Remember that in the past, and indeed in many other countries, sports such as cockfighting and bullfighting were/are commonplace despite being considered crimes in the USA today. Many people also consider rodeos to be animal cruelty, and a good case can be made for that too. I’ve never seen any suggestion that people who patronise such sports are in any way more violent than people who don’t, despite the fact that they are hurting the animals involved for kicks. In fact if you asked me who was more likely to be involve din violent acts, a 19th century man who frequented illegal gaming rooms or one who frequented legal cock fights, I would assume the former, which once again suggests that the act of violence to animals indicates nothing.
I agree that if someone primarily does something because they get a kick out of the cruelty itself, rather than because they are oblivious or apathetic to it or because they consider such cruelty acceptable, that is indicative of something. If people played video games because the bloodshed made them sexually excited, would that not also likely be an indicator of future violence? So the act itself isn’t indicative of anything at all, nor is the enjoyment of acts involving cruelty to animals.
It is purely the motivation behind the enjoyment of the act. And that is no more true of animals cruelty than it is of video games or watching TV or reading the Bible.
Visibility. You can’t see tattoos from half a mile away as you can with earmarks. And you can’t even see them from 5 yards away as you can with brands. In fact tattoos can really only be seen when you have the animal in the yard or on a truck. That’s OK, but when you want to know which of your neighbours those new beasts have come from so you can fix the hole in the fence, or you want to know which of the new stock you just bought are avoiding the gates you really need brands and earmarks. These days a lot of places are moving over to a system of tattoos and eartags and earmarks for animal welfare purposes, but that gets complicated and you need to memorise the tag colours and shapes for each lot you bring onto the place and it doesn’t work for people who are colourblind.
I’m not sure there’s a connection or correlation between dodging the law and violent behaviour. I’m not basing this opinion on statistics or scientific data mind you, but as a non-violent person who still feels above dumb laws, anecdotal data points this way :p. Of course, violent people who feel above the law will exhibit violent behaviour more often than violent people who’re scared of the law, but how common are those ? IME, people with poor impulse control don’t think about the law or consequences or anything much, really. They just want to thump you NOW.
True, but also probably useless for most purposes - how do we know on which level anyone enjoys anything ?
Can’t they just spray-paint their cows, then ? I mean, I can see how a cow tag would require marginally more maintenance than a brand, but if it’s good enough for gangstas it oughta be good enough for cow-boys. Plus, they’d get to express their poetic, artistic side. Or they could just spray-paint giant dicks, whatever
I have personally seen a man beating the bejeezus out of a pinball machine, complete with an accompanying stream of profanity. Crazy people play games too but they were crazy when they started.
Well there’s definitely a correlation between being convicted of breaking the law and violent behaviour. And if we aren’t talking about convictions then the relationship between animal cruelty and violence also vanishes.
That’s the whole point. There is no correlation between hurting animals and violence, the only correlation is between motivation and violence, and as you said, we can’t know that. So for all practical purposes there is no correlation.
Video game has not mad me a violent person. I’ve been play all types of genres, most of them violent in some way, shape or form. However, depending on the game genre, you can actually spike a persons emotions, which include being mad, happy, sad, scared, etc, etc.
I’ve done studies on this topic, and people have tried to blame video games for many different reasons. My personal outlook on this is, I’m sure every individual is different.
I have personally raged against my family, not in a game of Monopoly, but a game of Scattergories. I think it was justified when “seaweed” was democratically accepted as a Breakfast Food That Starts With ‘S’.
To add anecdotal evidence to the OP’s question, I’ve spent my entire life of 35 years playing video games, including most of the violent ones, and I’ve never so much as thrown a punch at someone in real life. It would be hard for me to imagine video games making someone violent by nature. On the other hand, there have been times where I’ve played a racing game for a few hours then drove somewhere for real. It definely had a momentary affect where I found myself wanting to pass other cars as if I was still in the game. But one look at the speedometer and that went away, it certainly didn’t change my nature.
I don’t think there is. People get convicted for speeding every day who aren’t violent. Or DUIs, or possession of controlled substances, or prostitution, or tax evasion, or… you get the idea. Hell, if we go by your own example, illegal gambling is not a crime that involves any violence whatsoever. It only implies betting the cops aren’t going to show up today
Now, of course if we are to compare a random sample of convicted felons with a random sample of clean-as-a-whistle blokes, the lawbreakers are bound to display more violent tendencies on average, since some of them will have been convicted for rape, assault, bank robbery, murder etc…
But simply breaking the law or even being caught and tried for doing so doesn’t imply violence in my book.
No, I don’t. All those things correlate with violence. Possession of controlled substances especially. People convicted of marijuana possession for example are about 5 times more likely to be convicted of violent crime.
As I said above, the correlation is pretty much inevitable because the very upright pillars of the community, little old ladies who would never speed or drive drunk or anything else, are also the people who are least likely to be violent. In contrast gangbangers aren’t real concerned about speeding tickets or possession charges.
None of this implies causation of course, but the correlation exists. You know the old saw about 90% of the crimes being committed by 10% of the people? It’s basically true. People who are prepared to commit violent crimes aren’t the types to be worried about minor crimes such as speeding or possession.
Cruelty to animals is also not a crime that involves any violence whatsoever, unless one wishes to indulge the tautology that cruelty to animals is violence.
Statistically it does, just as statistically hurting animals implies violence.
In each case the implication being drawn is wrong, but it’s there statistically.
I haven’t seen any studies that inarguably show a link between video games and violence but I’m surprised at the animosity displayed at the possibility that there is a link and a lot of people seem to wave it away as proven false. Any animal that can be nudged into drinking Bud Lite by an advertisement could be susceptible to VG violence.
