If Video Games Make People Violent, So Do Pictures of Snakes 161
New submitter phenopticon writes with this nugget from an intriguing piece at Gamasutra that adds another voice to the slow-burn debate on the psychological effects of video games: "For nearly thirty years we've been having this discussion, asking the question: do violent movies, music or video games make people violent? Well according to Brad Bushman and Craig Anderson of Iowa State University, yes. Based on the results of their research they concluded in 2001 that video games and violent media can make people aggressive and violent. Based upon their data and their conclusions, however, it's safe to say that photos of snakes, crispy bacon, or a particularly rigorous game of chess can also make people aggressive and violent."
Motherf**king snakes! (Score:5, Funny)
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I agree with banning snakes.
News At Eleven (Score:1)
Video Game Developer Defends Video Games, News at Eleven.
Crispy bacon (Score:5, Funny)
I fucking hate it when my bacon's burnt.
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I'm a vegetarian, and all this BACON meme stuff is really annoying. Not as annoying as tempeh-based fake bacon, but annoying. And it's supposed to be crispy, but not burnt.
Re:Crispy bacon (Score:4, Insightful)
patronizing bullshit... (Score:1)
is what makes me violent!
No shit (Score:4, Funny)
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violence study (Score:1)
While I don't think playing video games makes the individual violent, I'm curious to see the presence of violence in groups; and to an extent, how it affects or shapes the culture's view of violence. Do we become desensitized or do we accept certain forms of violence to be entertainment (ex.: arantino movies). And from there, does the culture make the individual violent?
Anyways, I have a feeling that violence in media is much more complicated than a cause/ effect test in a lab for a few weeks. We've tried t
Bacon claim unsupported! News at 11! (Score:5, Funny)
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I checked the original article. It doesn't support the claims about bacon. I guess it's still safe to eat breakfast. At least, safe for my family and friends. Maybe not so safe for my heart.
The reverse is also true. I ate my family and friends for breakfast and now my bacon is safe. At least until lunch.
Chess (Score:1)
Is nothing but a regicide simulator.
30 years? try 60 (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in the 1930s I guess it was talkies, so they brought in the Hayes Code.
Whatever is the "new" media" is assumed to be evil and corrupting.
It might be, but you do have to prove it.
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It might be, but you do have to prove it.
You mean our buying habits and election results aren't proof enough?
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Fifty years ago rock 'n roll music.
And have you seen what have happened? Why since the 1950s, women have entered the job market, contraceptives are freely available, abortion has been legalized, pornography has been legalized, and the blacks have gained civil rights all over the US! I would not be surprised if many of the scare-moralizing people warning of the dangers of rock'n'roll would be appalled.
Re:30 years? try 60 (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the 1930s I guess it was talkies, so they brought in the Hayes Code.
Actually, the discussion goes back at least 2400 years. It was one of the points of difference between Plato and Aristotle. Plato thought media (theater, poetry and music back then) caused people to emulate what was being presented, while Aristotle was of the opinion it actually helped people release the tension and thus not go around killing, raping and such.
Generation after generation afterwards -- at what amounts to at least 120 generations, give or take -- there have been people arguing for either camps, with no consensual conclusion having ever been reached.
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Sixty years ago it was comic books
Sixty years ago comics were distributed indiscriminately through news stands, cigar stores, and other outlets. The soft core bondage porn of True Detective on sale a half step away from Archie and Donald Duck.
The hard core stuff sold under the counter.
Crime and horror comics tried to reach out to older teens and adults who had discovered the 25 cent pulp fiction paperback novels of the rough-cut Mickey Spillane --- but it was pretty crude and exploitive stuff, no matter how collectible the cover art looks
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Were people really saying that about comic books 50 years ago? I sure don't remember that but then I was in the Navy and mostly out of the US. Of course they were saying that reading lots of comics might stifle ones reading ability (include TV here). They were right about TV IMHO.
The Hays code was expressly designed to ensure movies were not sending a message of immorality - which kinda translates to "don't show or imply anything which might suggest sex" and make sure everything is in "good taste".
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Were people really saying that about comic books 50 years ago?
The Comics Code, formed 1954. Their stamp was on the cover of just about every comic until about 2001.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority [wikipedia.org]
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How about that! Some time around 1945-1948 my mother objected to me reading comics and I replied that there was a stamp/icon on then that said that some educational group approved the comics. She must have rolled her eyes. I had quit reading them before 1954. There was a great rise of "juvenile delinquency", especially in cities, at that time and "experts" came up with all sorts of reasons, completely untested reasons mostly. We now know that much if it was due to lead from leaded gasoline and from lea
Interesting correlation. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Interesting correlation. (Score:5, Funny)
And most of them had high levels of dihydrogen monoxide in their body.
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http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html#SYMPTOMS [dhmo.org]
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And 80% of the numbers you state on the 'net are made up on the spot.
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These numbers are actually accurate this time. Even if made up on the spot.
Chess-induced aggression (Score:1)
That explains why I would scatter the pieces around the room when I lost at chess
back when I was still in single digits.
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1. f3 e5
2. g4 Qh4#
Bang! Bang!
Oblig. (Score:4, Funny)
(Kristian Wilson - Creator of Pac-Man - 1989)
[I know this quote is a comedina joke and not an original one, but whatever it expresses exactly my tougths on the subject.]
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"If Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music." (Kristian Wilson - Creator of Pac-Man - 1989)
Sounds a lot like a rave party.
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Just add glow sticks and you're there. Back in 2001 the snopesters [snopes.com] didn't find any evidence that the quote is bona fide, though.
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I didn't think this needed to be said....i.e. obvious. And I've never been to one. Too old.
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So ancient tribes playing their drumbs repetitively to induce a Trance state played pack-man?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think people always used to be exposed to that sort of stuff, it's just in the relative recent past we've had the option of avoiding that sort of exposure. Between war and just the process of getting that burnt bacon on the table, you'd have to be very familiar with death.
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That's correct. When I was growing up, if you burnt the bacon, well, you were toast.
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Re:G.I.G.O. (Score:4, Insightful)
If the magnitude of the effect of using a cell phone while driving were similar to that of changing the station on the radio, then that's really not worth worrying about. But it turns out the magnitude of the effect is similar to or greater than driving while drunk, which warrants laws prohibiting the behavior.
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But to say that it makes them into killers or has any significant effect on them is just as ridiculous, in my opinion. As far as I know, crime statistics don't demonstrate either.
Increasingly Silly Debate (Score:2)
This article does bring up the interesting point, that violent media has equal potential to make people violent, no matter what form of media it is (the 2-minutes hate from
Its About Gun Control (Score:1)
Video games, or pictures of snakes is not what the debate is about. Its about gun control. Since there are so many people all gung-ho to trample on the rights of others, people like the NRA are doing to you what you do to them. They are blaming what you like to distract from you taking away what they like, the only difference is they have a constitutional amendment protecting them. Since so many are DEMANDING something gets done, ask yourself what is easier for Congress to accomplish: Banning constituti
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The difference is that video games don't kill people and guns do. Regardless of what the 2nd amendment folks say, the reality is that guns are more likely to be used to kill the owner than anybody else and that banning them would result in a decreased death rate from them.
I'm not saying that we necessarily want to go that route, but it's more a penis size issue than legitimate defense issue as there's no way in hell you'd be able to overthrow the government with the weapons that are generally accepted to be
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Nor are you likely to ever need one for self defense if you're not doing stupid things.
Facts [justfacts.com]. Guns are used for self defense about 989,000 times a year around the year 2000 in the US. Guns are used for murder about 10,000 times a year. Don't make up statements that the facts clearly show are wrong.
This is EXACTLY my point, hedwards is litterally making stuff up to deamonize law abiding citizens and claiming they should have no right to protect themsleves. This is the reason the NRA is attacking video games and the movie industry, but people are demanding something gets done and the NRA i
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The thing about the use of guns for self-defense, additionally, is that there is the possibility of a snowball effect. If the possibility of victims being armed deters crime (the thesis of the gun-rights crowd), then even unarmed people benefit from their peaceful neighbors being armed. I used to live in a shitty neighborhood in Baltimore (and, before that, a shitty neighborhood in Washington); I don't own a gun and don't have the experience necessary to carry one safely, but I would have been happier if so
Article is a far more interesting read ... (Score:5, Interesting)
The article is a far more interesting read than the misleading headline and summary. A lot of it focuses on the idea that the "... discussion should not focus upon violent video games or violent visual media, it should focus on risk factors that might cause media to affect different people in different ways."
Unfortunately the social sciences are incredibly complex. There are a multitude of variables that are incredibly difficult to control, and any effort to control those variables would be shot down by ethics or create a significant bias in the experimental sample.
While things such as the physiological response of game players is interesting, I would be far more interested in learning about the long term impact on attitudes and behaviours. Alas, the studies that I have seen in the media have not really addressed those issues. As such they tend to be divisive among the general public, who tend to interpret the results on way or another based upon their personal beliefs.
I would also be interested in seeing meaningful longitudinal studies. Yet those have major issues because of the dynamics of technology and society. Even the most graphic violence of video games in the 1980s would border on the implicit violence of modern video games. Part of that relates to the inherent graphical and storage space limitations of the past (restricted storage space limited the ability to tell a story). Part of that relates to the more mature subjects of modern games as the demographic has expanded from children to adults.
Aggressive? (Score:2)
Picture this: having to pay your taxes! It makes me SO DMN AGGRESSIVE..
So: it's safe to conclude taxes are bad.
Another cause for violence (Score:2)
is Classical music [wikipedia.org].
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You're forgetting Barry Manilow.
I go Postal when I hear Barry.
So, technically, "yes" but... (Score:2)
...not any more than anything else. And you know, people have been violent since LONG before current pop culture has and for some reason, I think the violence was actually WORSE than it is today... or perhaps simply more sanitary and remote.
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http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/images/murderrate.png [deathpenaltyinfo.org]
In the early '90s the U.S. murder rate dropped significantly. One would think if video games made people violent that the opposite effect would have occurred.
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That doesn't do much to account for WHO is murdering. That drop is significant, I imagine, but knowing which demographic groups are contributing less to the statistical count would be worthy of note. After all, video games are not played by all. Does the reduction coincide with [potential] gamers?
Ban all the things (Score:2)
And threaten the People with violence if they have those things.
To reduce violence.
Video games? (Score:2)
Before we laud modern entertainment for how violent it is, lets remember what was considered normal entertainment in the past:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_baiting [wikipedia.org]
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I'll turn the clock back a little farther for you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colosseum#Use [wikipedia.org]
The Blame game pits us against ourselves... (Score:2)
Some tragedy happens, perhaps a mass murder like newtown, and people who want power come out and seek to use it to control people who are scared.
Perhaps the first thing they try is to invoke a visceral response to some aspect of the tragedy, the tools used, for instance. "Let's ban guns," they say, then the tragedy wouldn't happen because the perpetrator wouldn't have the tools (conveniently ignoring the possibility that a different tool would be used...)
Some recognize this for what it is - a manipulative
Not really... (Score:4, Insightful)
The anti-gun lobby is not gunning (pun) for power. They genuinely believe gun control will help. Socialized medicine and treatment for the mentally ill would help more, but they lost that battle when the health insurance lobby spent over a billion dollars to convince you the that health care was a limited resource because, hell, it's not like we couldn't train a 100,000 doctors a year for the price of America's private jets (you do the math, that's what I came up with using very, very conservative numbers).
So the people that want the shooting to stop gave up on treating the mentally ill and they're trying to just control things. I think they'll lose, but on the plus side it's put the corporate bastards on the defensive. I'll take what I can get.
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Pro-Gun people are single issue voters. Ironically you could take away every real freedom they have and so long as you left their guns alone they're OK
Any evidence of that, or just your say-so? I imagine most libertarians would be pro-gun, and they're definitely not single-issue voters. Besides, if nobody runs on gun-control, surely the pro-gun voters must have some other criteria, or they'd never vote in the first place.
hell, it's not like we couldn't train a 100,000 doctors a year for the price of America's private jets
Well, you couldn't, because the supply is controlled by the AMA, and adequate supply would remove their ability to dictate price. And there's certainly no need to go "nationalising" private property in order to fund any training you might
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If you have guns, most other freedoms are easily come by.
I guess this explains the antics ... (Score:2)
I guess this explains the antics of some of the big-name chess masters.
Pretty simple, really (Score:2)
Video games are a form of art. We must be allowed to express anything in the boundaries of art. If someone however mixes up real world with fantasy, and for example gets violent against real people, it's his own fault and he oughta be punished. If someone can not make the clear distinction between the two, something is wrong with the person, not in games.
Not to forget that there's many successful pacific games too, such as the Portal series.
I play Xonotic (Score:2)
at lot and it relieves LOTS of stress/anger which is caused by me spending anywherre from 1-3 hours of driving to work in the morning. (I usually have to pick up supplies at my wholesalers)
if someone goes out and does violence after playing a violent video game they're already fucked in the head. If kids are spending all of their waking non school hours infront of a game with out sociolizing obviouslt they're gonna grow up to be social retards but thats the parents fault.
Good point (Score:2)
I think video games today and those of the past are DIFFERENT. I remember enjoying violent bloody games, partially because they were so un-P.C. They had no story, were visually they were abstract, and were not as engrossing... that is, they didn't try to become a movie version of "choose your own adventure" putting you into the role of a main character to role play.
Therapists are trained to use various kinds of role playing to work thru emotional problems; including hypnosis - where you re-live experience
Real point, nothing unique to gaming (Score:2)
former hardcore gamer and parent (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm from the generation that first got called to task for violent video games... Mortal Combat, Splatterhouse, Doom, etc...
I continued on and love to play intense games even today.
Once you have kids, you view of these things change,however.
Some people will change less, some more, but it affects you. You can see it happening inside them. Distancing themselves from consequences. Making aggression be the first response to a situation. In most kids, their response is subtle, and they can "handle it", but the question is should you glorify it?
Video games are an escape... this is true. It is fine for you to escape from consequences, and enjoy fantasy, but it's what you take back to the real world that defines whether you can handle it or not.
Many games are about being a hero and doing the right thing and there happens to be gore and violence along with it. But you are not behaving violent to celebrate it. Your character is being violent because he must to accomplish the task, save the girl, save the planet etc.
Games that turn this on its head are entertaining to those who understand the escape it provides ( who didn't love GTA when it came out? )
However if you are too young and don't have the life experience or morality to offset it, these games server to numb children to violence and do not give them the right skills to manage real world scenarios. It only confuses them.
You may think I am overreacting here, but please read this with a tone of reason. I am not saying violent video games should be banned, or anything outrageous. I do say, however that people should use good judgement and never assume that children are little adults. They do not function or learn the same way as adults. They do not have the maturity to understand and it will affect them.
More studies should be done about this, and I think that the video game industry should continue their classification system and encourage parents to take ti seriously.
I rambled a bit there, but hopefully someone takes something good away from this.
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Once you have kids, you view of these things change,however.
And I suppose you speak for all parents, don't you?
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Give it a rest. Yes, he could have said "Once I had kids, my views...." instead of "Once you have kids, you view ". But what he's saying, in my experience, is mostly true, if not always true for everyone.
Once people have kids, their views on many things do tend to change. You tend to become more protective, and see issues more in terms of how they affect the child, rather than how they directly affect you. It happened to everyone I know. It happened to me.
I guess you're different. Or you don't have c
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Yes, he could have said "Once I had kids, my views...." instead of "Once you have kids, you view ".
Indeed he could have. But it doesn't mean much for the correctness of someone's previous beliefs when his/her views change to begin with.
But what he's saying, in my experience, is mostly true, if not always true for everyone.
Well, my point was that I've seen a few parents who aren't paranoid and irrational.
well, (Score:2)
DRM makes people violent.
Illogical headline (Score:2)
If Video Games Make People Violent, So Do Pictures of Snakes
What's the "if" about? According to this study, video games can make people violent. Pictures of snakes can also make people violent. But one does not follow from/is not dependent on the other. Also:
Based on the results of their research they concluded in 2001
I know Slashdot can be a little slow on the uptake at times, but this is ridiculous!
Badgers (Score:2)
Looking at snakes does not cause violence. It just makes you start chanting something about badgers and mushrooms.
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Go back and do some research and try not to post off topic bullshit to forward your own irrational political ideology. Which is not even based in a firm understanding of morality or ethics. Your fear is irrational. Stop letting it control your thoughts. There are not a million billion crazed gun nuts seeking to kill you. Note that I state its irrational. Not illogical.
I don't think it's gun nuts he's worried about (Score:2)
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About 10% of murders are committed by people with untreated mental illness. Your response does not address the other 90%.
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I would be absolutely obliged to pay taxes on a salary for helping these people, especially if it insured we all got to keep our humanity by not loosing our freedom for a what I perceive to be only a tiny bit of safety from a not really big problem.
Honestly I see so many far worse problems we could fix then crazy people with weapons or the power to harm others.
But thanks for sharing your opinion.
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Hell I would pay extra tax on any medication or any income I had if it went to keeping society together while protecting peoples liberty.
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I would be absolutely obliged to pay taxes on a salary for helping these people, especially if it insured we all got to keep our humanity by not loosing our freedom for a what I perceive to be only a tiny bit of safety from a not really big problem.
Congrats on using a spellchecker... but you should probably check out what the words you used there mean if you want to use them again.
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You make an excellent lack of point in your knee jerk rant. Odd that you refer to firearm owners as gun nuts, but if that is your preferred term then so be it.
It sounds like the GP's point was that a violent irrational person with a knife can hurt a person or two, but the victims can fight back or flee. That same person with a gun can cause much more harm. Given the number of wounds and deaths caused by firearms, this is not a theoretical exercise.
I await your carefully crafted and rational response, pre
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Eliminating guns won't eliminate tragedy and mass murder, there's still chemicals, crazy cults (see Japan, Tokyo, Subways).
It's just not the right solution, no matter how much justification you try to throw at it. But its impossible to implement gun free zones and perfect safety and serenity. Would you take it a step further and just brainwash and medicate people Cockwork Orange style.
Jesus wouldn't demand peoples guns by force if your one of those Christian types. Bhudda wouldn't.
Science if you really want
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And mark me, I don't tie guns to humanity. If it want guns it would be something else. It will one day be something other then guns, its just guns right now because everyone is so focused on them. Because humanity externalizes all its power in them right now.
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Eliminating guns won't eliminate tragedy and mass murder, there's still chemicals, crazy cults (see Japan, Tokyo, Subways).
Eliminating smallpox and creating vaccines for the most deadly illnesses did not stop all deaths due to illness, so therefore vaccines are foolish and should never have been created? Airbags don't stop all deaths in cars so should not exist? I prefer a rational approach where the perfect solution does not stop good improvements, but you may think differently. (And chemical mass-murders are exceedingly difficult and rare; if we were to double their severity and halve gun-deaths then the world would be a f
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The reason its irrational is its pretty much like taking the teeth away from sharks because they occasionally think people might be tasty.
Shit happens. Life goes on. But making everyone suffer for the protection of a few is far worse then a few shitty events.
It's life and death. And I am very familiar with death. I would gladly risk dieing to some horrible accident or crazy person if it ensured the peace and happiness and dignity of the world. That is the difference between animals and men and reason and un
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Hell further more its passing judgment on people you do not even know. That you cant do. We have it codified to even give suspected criminals the benefit of the doubt and prove they did something wrong before passing judgment.
So were just going to pass judgment and call all men and women animals. Even the crazy ones deserve more respect then that. I know a few functional crazy people.
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Because I'm pretty sure we can't outlaw 'addiction' but I'm pretty sure we can outlaw drugs.
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Re: But what is their firepower? (Score:2)
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How are socialists and globalists to be tarred with the same brush?
Socialists are people who think that the government knows better than you do how you should participate in the economy.
Globalists are people who think that national boundaries are artificial, detrimental barriers to trade and that, if two people under two different governments want to buy and sell things, they should be able to do so without interference from their governments.
They're two opposing views.
As a socialist (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not that the government knows better, it's more complicated than that. That's the trouble with socialism. It's the complex answer to a complex problem. Libertarianism is the simple answer, the easy one. Simple answers always sound better, but I'll steal a fellow
Re:As a socialist (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the trouble with socialism. It's the complex answer to a complex problem.
No it is not. Socialism means public ownership of the means of production and distribution, i.e. state ownership of the industry and central planning of the economy. That's simply what the word means (look it up in a dictionary) and what that ideology was always understood to represent. Just because "socialists" are embarrassed by the utter failure of their system wherever it was tried, doesn't mean you can simply pretend that a word with a clearly defined meaning now means something completely different. It may be that a complex mix of free market and government regulation is the best way (though I personally disagree) but that is commonly called "mixed economy", not "socialism". Btw. Keynes would be insulted if you called him a socialist to his face, and being and disgusting power-hungry evil bully as he was, it probably wouldn't be a good idea.
You're mixing it up (Score:4, Funny)
You're also using a personal attach on Keynes to discredit his economic theories. That's is actually a very sophisticated rhetorical technique for a silly message board like
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Communism is not an economic theory. In practice it is really a form of government, or if you are crazy enough to believe in it's fairy tales, a form of social order that magically exists without government. In any case, I just find it interesting how leftists change their philosophy depending on what they think works at a given time, and, comically, get it wrong even with the benefit of hindsight.
As for the second part, you are either joking or you are new here. Ad hominem is pretty much bread and butter o
For the last time, I am not a Communist. (Score:2)
At 50 (Score:2)
Again, make all the decisions you want (Score:2)
Being a socialist is a pain the the ass. It means no nice little sound bites. No convenient ideology. It means acknowledging real problems and having the will to solve them. You might screw up, but you don't pretend some blanket political theory or ideology can fix t
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In real world, libertarian socialism is an oxymoron. A natural result of liberty is inequality. If you agree with that obvious truth then you have to accept that any system that enforces equality is not libertarian. How do you have equality without transferring wealth by force from one person to another? Now, if you have this idea that all people are the same in terms of ability and that without, as you probably imagine, collusion of evil corporate oligarchs, greedy banksters, corrupt politicians and "1 per
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I think "libertarian socialism" doesn't necessarily have to be an oxymoron. Classically the socialist institutions people envision are involuntary and government-run, but I can envision voluntary ones, too; the Free Software community, for instance, is very socialist ("hey, let's produce a thing, and let the public use it"). So is the work of organization like the Nature Conservancy. You could also call co-ops and credit unions and similar operations "libertarian socialist" -- they're worker-owned or user-o
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I think you hit one thing dead on -- the whole "do violent video games make people violent?" argument is framed in a way to be absurd. Unfortunately, the nanny-state liberals* take the bait and and believe it. Gamers love this argument because it's easy to poke holes in.
What gamers fail to realize that it doesn't matter whether video games make people violent or not. That doesn't justify them wasting away thousands of hours of their lives doing something less productive than jerking off. I do occasionally p
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How is somebody who has a poor grasp of reality supposed to interpret this information?
Who knows? Why should the grand majority of us who aren't 'crazy' have to suffer just because there are a few 'crazy' people?
We live in a very screwed up society.
I agree, but I think it's because people often seem to enjoy sacrificing freedom for safety.