On Tue, 2007-02-20 at 17:33 -0800, Rick Carlson wrote: > > > No. I do not have the expertise to argue it one way or the other. As a > citizen with a few years of life experience I suspect that viewed within > a vacuum there is no evidence of video games fomenting violent behavior. > But having grown up in the 50's and 60's when racial hatred and things > as silly as the general attitude towards littering have undergone > radical changes I have watched as my generation has changed its views > and responses to reflect mainstream attitudes. To be sure there is > plenty of racism and indifference to the harm that littering does to the > planet but those attitudes are not so widespread or accepted in the > general public these days.
I don't know. There's lots of people who couldn't care less about littering. Look at all the cigarettes thrown out windows (Sometimes I think the next time I see one fly out a window in front of me while I'm on the motorcycle I'm going to ride up along side the person and smack them in the face! Uh Oh! Road Rage! ;) ). Look at all the trash on the roads and elsewhere. Is it because there's more people as a whole, more people littering as compared to prior years, a combination? As for racism, I know (and have known) many people of many races that are racist. More and more I see them voice it and see no problem with their attitude. (Now I'll probably piss someone off here) More notable, I have noticed more and more non-white people cry racism or pull out the racism card in all manner of situations. This to me is racist as well, but we don't dare say so or we will be called racist. "More border security? That's racist and you only want it because you hate Mexicans!" Bull&*^%! This goes further into discrimination of any kind. Say anything about anyone for any reason and you run the risk of being accused of discrimination and possibly committing a hate crime (another stupid concept). > So noted. can you also accept that many people who, feeling threatened > by other drivers menacing them with SUV's driven in such a way as to > indicate they feel invincible in their large vehicle, feel a need to > buy a SUV just to have a chance to survive a crash with another one? I for one would not want a small car because of the crazy, unskilled drivers in the big ones. I don't mind a motorcycle because it is small and nimble enough that I can avoid nearly every idiot on the road that's out to kill me (and they all are). Most times a motorcycle is in an accident because the person riding it was stupid. Compare this to car accidents where many accidents involve people that could not avoid the stupidity of the other driver no matter how aware they were of their surroundings. > > Reality vs non-reality does not always exist on the freeways otherwise > you would not see people reading newspapers as they drive down the > freeway, or shaving, or putting on makeup, or changing clothes, or > talking on cell phones that obviously are too much of a distraction to > allow the driver to be aware of his/her surroundings. To get to the root of the problem one needs to look deeper than just some game, the type of car, etc. The root, I believe, is society. We're too busy, too over-burdened, and always in a hurry. We can't take responsibility for our actions and expect others (government) to take it and dish it out for us. We don't have the time to get fully dressed at home, put our makeup on before walking out the door, and we just can't miss that phone call. We take driving for granted and think that we can do it without problem with our eyes closed. We generally don't give a damn about the other guy, especially when there so many other guys crammed into such a small space in the city and on the road. > > For that matter explain why some drivers think that increasing their > speed during a rain storm or thick fog makes it safer than slowing down > to a safer speed during those conditions. > People in general are stupid. Everyone is in a hurry, and has to be there last week. Far too many don't know how to drive and for whatever reason are not taught how to drive well (if at all). Put these same people behind the wheel of a 4x4 or sports car and they become time bombs. There are many drivers from out of state that don't understand what happens to our roads when it rains, because the roads in rainy regions do not react the same. Then there's the many parents that allow their kids to get a license before they're 18 and have even some semblance of a clue how to drive. We refused to let our teenage boys get a license because we knew they were not responsible enough nor skilled enough to be behind the wheel of a car. They are both in their 20's and still can't drive worth a damn, but as adults they're on their own now. Maybe I could have tried harder to get them to let me teach them how to drive, but that's water under the bridge now. They took driver's ed. in school, but it did little good. When I took it in school they actually taught me something. My mom and dad taught me even more and before I rode a motorcycle they made me take a motorcycle class. So, none of the problems we see on the roads are caused by video games. The violence in schools is not cause by video games. The violence we see anywhere is not a result of video games. Nor is littering, racism, discrimination, bad driving, or any other problem we see in our society. We blame the games because we have to blame something other than ourselves. The popularity of the games is a symptom of how the people playing them (or maybe one might say people who are addicted to them?) were raised, taught (or not taught, as it were), and a breakdown in other areas of society, not the other way around. Heaven forbid we actually take responsibility for our own actions. PGA -- Paul G. Allen BSIT/SE Owner/Sr. Engineer Random Logic Consulting www.randomlogic.com -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
