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Well at least we can blame video games for that one guy who killed a bunch of people by throwing fireballs and kicking turtle shells at them. I heard he'd eaten some mushrooms though.
 
#gmstrong
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I'd probably put poor diet from a reliance on processed and fast foods higher on the list of causes than video games. That's a pretty newer phenomenon in and of itself, too.
Politicians are puppets, y'all. Let's get Geppetto!
Formerly 4yikes2yoshi0
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What it does however is make me wonder how much of the real world you've had a chance to experience while you've been cooped up in your room playing video games..
I don't expect you too grasp that. you don't know what you don't know.. but you'll find out.. sooner or later, reality smacks you right in the face.
I'm not sure what you mean by "how much of the real world [I've] had a chance to experience."
I have a mortgage, a wife whom I've been with for over 11 years, and a 7 month old son. I have a loving, smart dog who is now 7 1/2 years old and has spent all but six weeks of her life with us. I own 7 chickens, who live in a 12'x6'x6' chicken coop I built in our backyard. Actually, they roam the yard during the day, and only go into the coop to eat, drink, lay eggs, and sleep.
As a kid, my parents divorced when I was 4. I played the alto saxophone from 4th grade until 11th grade. I played on the football team in 7th and 8th grade. I was on the baseball team in 9th grade before switching to track sophomore year because all the cute girls ran track. I got my first job at 14 at an Ice Cream shop called "The Latest Scoop" at Southgate in Maple Heights because I could walk there from my house. Other jobs I've had since then are as a short-lived busboy at the Italian restaurant in downtown Bedford (who's name escapes me at the moment,) at Regal Cinemas in Solon (where I was called "jailbait" by a customer and "my bulldog" by my manager,) a web designer, a waiter at Denny's, engineer co-op at GE Lighting (twice,) a waiter at Stir Crazy at Legacy Village, and a teaching assistant in the Biomedical Engineering department at CWRU, in addition to a handful of one-off event-type job experiences. I have a Bachelor's and Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering from Case. My master's research was published in the conference proceedings for the IEEE RFIC conference. I have worked as an engineer for 6 1/2 years after moving from Cleveland to Austin, TX, and have won four awards for significant contributions to the company, two smaller recognitions for smaller contributions, and two for winning our Halloween costume contests.
I've traveled to Cancun (including Chichen Itza, twice,) Tijuana, and Ixtapa, Mexico; Toronto and handful of times; Ibiza, Spain; Iceland; Paris, France; and Peru (including Machu Piccu.) Domestically outside Ohio, I've been to Boston; New Hampshire; Vermont (Ben & Jerry's factory); New York City (went to the NFL draft twice); Baltimore; DC a handful of times; Virginia Beach and Williamsburg; Wilmington, NC; Myrtle Beach; Savannah, GA for an ultimate frisbee tournament; Orlando, Tampa/Clearwater, and Sarasota, FL; Pittsburgh; drove my family on the Blue Ridge Parkway out of Smoky Mountain National Park in a 1986 Chevy conversion van when I was 16 (one of the scariest experiences of my life;) Mammoth Cave and the Daniel Boone National Forest (yikes) in Kentucky; Pigeon Forge, Nashville, Beale St in Memphis and a trip down to Graceland; New Orleans three times; Little Rock (briefly... really just driving through downtown) and Hot Springs, AK (where my wife talked me into going into the hot springs bath house, where after entering we were immediately separated and on of the employees threatened to "shine me up";) Paris, TX to see the mini eiffel tower wearing a cowboy hat; Hugo, OK to see the circus performer's graveyard (another of the scariest experiences of my life, and not at the cemetery;) Dallas, San Antonio a handful of times, Corpus Christi, drove all over Texas at some point or another, (been to Lockhart, Lexington, Marble Falls, Fredricksburg, Midland, saw the Buddy Holly statue in Lubbock, the Cadillac Graveyard in Amarillo, slept in El Paso, Wurstfest in New Braunfels, etc;) been to Roswell, White Sands, Carlsbad Caverns, and Santa Fe, NM; Tombstone, Saguaro Nat'l Forest, Phoenix/Tempe, Sedona, Flagstaff, the Grand Canyon, Sunset Crater Volcano, the Petrified Forest ("do not feed the Ravens, the bubonic plague still exists,") and even saw the World Peace Buffalo in AZ; visited LA and San Diego in California; been to an art museum in Tulsa, OK. Went into the St. Louis Arch, Union Station, and was refused entry to a "private" St. Louis dog park (I mean, have you even ever heard of such a thing?) Went to Minneapolis for a job interview. Nice town.
So please, tell me if that's been cooped up playing video games too much to experience life.
Would you think I was too cooped up in my room "to experience life" if I said I was reading instead of playing video games?
For what it's worth, I've played about a total of an hour of video games since my son was born, but I haven't really done anything other than work, watch football, and care for my wife and son since he was born, so if I'm cooped up it's not video games which has kept me so.
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The only parallel I see in video games and kids that do crap like this is it's not that the kid plays video games, it's that the parents are checked out so much they allow their child to play video games for 14 hours a day. Instead of actually parenting them. All this comes back to one issue. People 'having' kids (much like they 'have' a blender). Not parenting them but just crapping them out then essentially abandoning their role as a parent.
This is not the case in every case, but man there's a lot of crappy parenting out there being done by people that probably shouldn't have bred in the first place. JMHO.
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Legend
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My point is that it affects people. You can't do something for 2, 3, 4 hours a day and NOT have it affect you in some way.. if you read and study that long, you get smarter, if you watch tv, you ingest all sorts of information based on what you watch, if you exercise that long you get in better shape, if you eat that long you get fat... every action has a consequence... so what is the consequence of playing hours and hours of violent video games? You will not convince me that there isn't one.... and I will also argue that it may not be the same in every person as the human mind is very elastic in how it interprets all of this information that we put into it...
Yes, I think this is absolutely a fair point.
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keep asking it until you get to the bottom of it because the first answer is usually not the right answer.
Yes, I completely agree with this, as well.
In general, when people say "I wonder what role video games had in this" they are looking to point the finger at video games. I understand here that you are looking for what part of the "chain" they may have been in this case, but typically, that sort of response is looking to shift blame. This particular kid may or may not have played video games, I don't know. I'm going to guess he did, because most do. But let me ask this... do you think that the absence of video games would have prevented this? Do you think that improved parenting would have prevented this? I'm not saying this kid's parents didn't do everything they could for him, because obviously I don't know their situation, but a lot of kids don't have ideal parenting situations. That can be due to economic pressures the family is experiencing, to lack of role models the parents had, or a number of reasons including the parents just being lazy. As a new parent of a child with health complications, I know it can be very, very difficult to parent. People want to point the finger at the video game, but what about the parent who feigned slight protest toward their kid playing this game for three hours a night while relishing it giving them some peace and quiet?
I guess where I was getting our wires crossed is that more often than an alternative case as you've presented, people want to say "well, they shoot fake people in the video games, so that must be what made them murder real, innocent people" which I think is lazy and uninformed.
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So a kid commits a violent act... why? Well he was depressed all of the time... why? Maybe because he didn't have any friends... why? Because he never did anything to make friends... why? Because he was always inside playing video games with his "virtual friends"... why? because his parents constantly ridiculed him and destroyed his self-esteem to actually go out and make real friends...
If you remove video games from that chain you mentioned but maintain the neglect, does that prevent the act? The kid will find a new way to pass them time and vent. Maybe he or she's torturing small animals, or maybe the kid is writing poetry, who knows? Either way, to indicate the climactic event happened "because" of the video games seems shallow to me.
*edit* in other words, basically what Portland said.
Last edited by clevesteve; 12/13/12 12:10 PM.
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Legend
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I should point something out here that I'm aware of, some of these video games can be and are used to train military personnel. I've even heard of them being used to help prepare surgeons for certain proceedures that require the use of scopes and such.
It could be said that flight simulators are a type of video game. Not in the sense that you can use one in your living room. (Now that would be cool)
So while we are talking a lot about the negatives, there are positives.
As it relates to kids spending hours in front of a screen, like you DC, I can't help but think that it has an impact. The question is, what is that impact.
Will it be that the kid that does that grows up to be a super genius that invents the next laser knife for surgical use.. or will he be the next T.J. Lane and shoot up a school?
Or will he grow up to be a salesman who pays his bills, marries, raises his kids and provides for them, grows old, retires and dies?
I'm not trying to say that all kids that play video games are bad or are going to go off on their classmates. and I haven't said as much.
What I am saying is, I wonder if there is a line that can be drawn between these games and these things we see happening.
It's like, how come one guy can drink a couple of beers a day and then for whatever reason, not have one for a week. But someone else can't live without one in their hand all the time? And does it mean that the one that has one in his hands all the time is anymore likely to be a serial killer? Of course not.
What I'm really speaking to is reality vs an alternate reality.
I think, for some, the line gets blurred just like some folks on here with Fantasy football vs Real Football. To deny that those things exist is like walking around with Blinders on.
Clevesteve wants us to believe that because 17 billion games are sold and only X number of incidents occurs that it can't be video games. well, that just can't be said. Different people do different things.
What caused those two kids at Columbine to go off as they did. Those two were odd kids by all accounts. What made them odd? They were Video game addicts according to reports.. did that do it? Or were they just both disturbed kids?
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”
Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe."
Damanshot
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Legend
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This particular kid may or may not have played video games, I don't know. I'm going to guess he did, because most do. But let me ask this... do you think that the absence of video games would have prevented this? Do you think that improved parenting would have prevented this?
I have no idea in either case, which is why I find this topic so interesting... clearly parenting trumps video games because it starts at birth and has a much stronger impact through the early development years, which are so important. Plus, as you say, parents have the ability to control the video games to a large extent.
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People want to point the finger at the video game, but what about the parent who feigned slight protest toward their kid playing this game for three hours a night while relishing it giving them some peace and quiet?
See I'm not one of those people. I know people want to find a cause, a single solitary cause because as you pointed out earlier, that makes them feel like they can fix it quickly and easily... very few things of this magnitude happen as a result of one factor... it's very complex and people don't like complex... re: all of the people who singularly blame the coach or the QB for wins and losses... usually not that simple.
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If you remove video games from that chain you mentioned but maintain the neglect, does that prevent the act? The kid will find a new way to pass them time and vent. Maybe he or she's torturing small animals, or maybe the kid is writing poetry, who knows? Either way, to indicate the climactic event happened "because" of the video games seems shallow to me.
Which is why I never said that it happened BECAUSE of the video game.. or BECAUSE the kid had access to a gun, those are both things that need to be considered as part of a much more complex issue but neither of them is the singular cause, which if removed, stops the problem.
I guess my interest is from the perspective of... do enough of the kids who commit random violence or enough of the kids who commit suicide have similar traits or signs that can be identified, monitored and addressed BEFORE they lash out. What are the leading indicators that a kid is nearing the breaking point? Is an obsession with violent video games one indicator? Is a change from Madden to war games an indicator?
yebat' Putin
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There are always signs, as we have found from what comes out after these terrible incidents occur, and they are not subtle signs. From what I see in the vast majority of these cases is that these are mentally ill kids whose parents either have no idea how to help them or simply want to pretend their kids do not have serious mental issues, and turn their heads from what is happening. These are not happy go lucky children who one day just break and go off. Now, a bad family life and other outside events like you are describing can certainly exacerbate their mental issues and cause them to spiral toward the eventual outcome but, these "kids" and people who do these things have deep, deep mental problems. As a country we do a horrible job of dealing with mental illness. I could go off about how we are throwing too many resources into perfectly able people to treat their snotty noses and sore throats, as well as their 5 children and their runny noses, in the emergency room, but that always sends a certain segment into a spin.  The fact is, it is a terrible problem and as a society we have pretty much just decided not to address this issue very seriously.
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Not really related much, but Flight Sim X can be used for partial credit towards your classroom hours for your pilots license. It is that realistic.
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Legend
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Not really related much, but Flight Sim X can be used for partial credit towards your classroom hours for your pilots license. It is that realistic.
I think my buddy used some kinda video game type gadget when training for his pilots license Or course, he was working on getting approved for a single engine plane.. nothing fancy like a jet or anything like a twin turboprop..
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”
Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe."
Damanshot
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It's funny Jules,, here's the latest story on the kid that did the shooting in Oregon. Doesn't sound as if there were any signs.. http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ss...t_river_defaultI should warn you, it's way easier to read on the link. Quote:
Oregon mall shooter's former girlfriend says he was 'never the violent type' (gallery)
Published: Thursday, December 13, 2012, 11:50 AM Updated: Thursday, December 13, 2012, 12:19 PM
Associated Press By Associated Press
jacob roberts.JPG Jacob Tyler Roberts AP
PORTLAND, Ore. -- To police and witnesses, Jacob Tyler Roberts was a gunman on a mission, shooting numerous rounds from a semiautomatic rifle as he stalked through a Portland mall, ultimately killing two people and seriously injuring another. To Roberts" shocked friends and family, he was just Jake, a happy, easygoing 22-year-old who liked video games and talked about moving to Hawaii.
"Jake was never the violent type," Roberts' ex-girlfriend, Hannah Patricia Sansburn, told ABC News. "His main goal was to make you laugh, smile, make you feel comfortable. You can't reconcile the differences.
"I hate him for what he did, but I can't hate the person I knew because it was nothing like the person who would go into a mall and go on a rampage," she said.
The Clackamas County sheriff's office said Roberts had several fully loaded magazines when he arrived at the mall Tuesday. Roberts parked his 1996 green Volkswagen Jetta in front of the second-floor entrance to Macy's and walked through the store into the mall and began firing randomly in the food court.
mall shooting victims.JPG Steven Mathew Forsyth, 45, of West Linn, Ore., left, and Cindy Ann Yuille, 54, of Portland, Ore. AP
He fatally shot Steven Mathew Forsyth, 45, and Cindy Ann Yuille, 54, the sheriff said. Kristina Shevchenko, 15, was wounded and in serious condition Wednesday.
Sansburn said Roberts had recently quit his job at a gyro shop in Portland and sold all of his belongings, telling her he was moving to Hawaii. He was supposed to take a flight Saturday but told her he got drunk and missed it.
"And then this happens. ... It makes me think, was he even planning on going to Hawaii?" Sansburn told ABC News.
Sansburn didn't return phone messages left by the Associated Press, and no one answered the door at her home Wednesday.
On a Facebook page that a friend identified as Roberts", a few photos show Roberts with friends, while one shows the back of a person in a knit cap firing what appears to be a handgun at targets. The cover photo is of a wall painted in graffiti with the message "Follow Your Dreams" and the word "Canceled" stamped across it.
In the public portion of his page, Roberts wrote: "I may be young but I have lived one crazy life so far."
Kristina Shevchenko.JPG Kristina Shevchenko, 15, who was injured in the shooting. AP
"I'm the kind of person that is going to do what I want," he wrote. "There is no reason for another person to tell you what to do, I'm the conductor of my choo choo train."
He added he was "a bit of an adrenaline junkie" who was "just looking to meet new people and see the world."
A former neighbor of Roberts said he liked to play video games and never seemed troubled.
"We knocked on each other's door every morning. Every day to hang out, to talk," said Samantha Bennett, who added she went to middle school with Roberts but wasn't close to him until he moved in with a girlfriend across the hall from her at an apartment complex in summer 2011.
"If me and my boyfriend were fighting, he was there to talk to me," Bennett said. "We would go to the bar together. I don't get it."
Roberts" dining room was decorated like a jungle, Bennett said -- just one of the quirky things he did. He had green lights and put ivy on the walls.
He once showed her a black handgun that she believed he purchased legally. He dropped out of sight earlier this year, and his phone was disconnected, she said.
Coverage from OregonLive.com, Cleveland.com
Friends say it's hard to imagine Jacob Roberts as a killer
Never a bad word for marketer Steve Forsyth, West Linn father of 2
Victim Cindy Yuille was a hospice nurse who loved the outdoors
Man spotted Cindy Yuille unresponsive, stayed with her until help arrived
Oregon mall gunman identified, used stolen gun in rampage, police say
Suspect's life plans recently fell through, ex-roommate says
Killer was Jacob Tyler Roberts; fatalities were Steve Forsyth, Cindy Ann Yuille
Wounded teen 'is doing better,' sister says
Oregon lawmaker launches effort to ban high-capacity gun clips in wake of shootings
Masked gunman unleashes fusillade, killing two, then himself
Photos from the Oregonian
Follow @Oregonian on Twitter
More coverage »
More recently, Roberts rented a basement room in a modest, single-story Portland home and hadn't lived there long, neighbor Bobbi Bates said. She said she saw him leave at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday wearing a dark jacket and jeans, carrying a guitar case.
Police say Roberts had stolen an AR-15 rifle from someone he knew.
The first 9-1-1 call came in at 3:29 p.m. Officers arrived a minute later. Instead of waiting for SWAT teams, police immediately entered the crowded mall.
Police told people inside to put their hands in the air, to make sure an armed person wasn't among them. Police spent hours clearing the 1.4 million-square-foot mall, as some workers and shoppers continued to hide in fear.
Wearing a hockey-style face mask and dark clothing, Roberts fled along a mall corridor and into a back hallway, down stairs and into a corner where police found him dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot, authorities said.
Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts said the fact that more people weren't killed was due to several factors. The suspect's gun jammed at one point; the mall implemented an immediate lockdown; and a large number of officers arrived on-scene quickly, "curtailing the suspect's ability to move around the mall."
Mall shooting in Oregon
Enlarge Associated Press Clackamas County Sherriff Craig Roberts describes the locations of the victims as he speaks at a news conference Wednesday. Mall shooting in Oregon gallery (9 photos)
"Ten thousand people in the mall at one time kept a level head. They got themselves out of the mall. They helped others get out, and there are just a number of heroes that took the time to help people get out," the sheriff said. "It was really about a full group of people coming together to make a difference."
Rachel La Corte, Associated Press. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Steven DuBois, Jonathan J. Cooper, Nigel Duara, and Sarah Skidmore in Portland, Pete Yost in Washington and Manuel Valdes in Seattle, along with researcher Rhonda Shafner.
It can't be easy to figure out who might or might not become a kid like this. Doesn't sound like he had a horrible life but like most of us, it probably wasn't perfect either.
I guess it depends how you ride the roller coaster that makes the difference.
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”
Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe."
Damanshot
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J/C One of my big issues with media coverage about things like this is the focus on the killer. I'd much prefer that they remain nameless and not get and "notoriety" for what they did. The other is that you read very little about the people that were impacted by the killer. Anyway, a friend of a friend was one of the two killed. As such, I see facebook posts about him. As well, they shared a blog posting today about him, that I thought would be good to pass along. I believe that generally blog posts are not allowed, but I ask the refs to allow it in this case. Tribute to Steve ForsythAnd a couple from more traditional news sources Steve Forsyth Cindy Yuille
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Legend
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One of my big issues with media coverage about things like this is the focus on the killer. I'd much prefer that they remain nameless and not get and "notoriety" for what they did. The other is that you read very little about the people that were impacted by the killer.
+1
It's like not showing those losers on TV that run on the field during a game. If this is a cry for attention, deny them that.
Of course, with that being said, those losers continue to run onto the field....but I think it's partly the attention they get from the people at the game too, regardless of if their shown on TV.
![[Linked Image]](http://www.dawgtalkers.net/uploads/Punchsmack/punch.gif) “...Iguodala to Curry, back to Iguodala, up for the layup! Oh! Blocked by James! LeBron James with the rejection!”
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Legend
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Quote:
+1
It's like not showing those losers on TV that run on the field during a game. If this is a cry for attention, deny them that.
That's always been my feeling. I think the only reason these people go shoot up a crowd of people is that they want to go out in a "blaze of glory" and get their name put down in the annuals for something in life. If people wanted to live out some sick video game fetish or get the thrill of shooting up something with a gun ... I don't think there would be suicide involved or even people for that matter.
I've always felt these things are just one last desperate plea for attention, because they know the media will give it to them. If they shoot themselves, nobody would care ... if they take out a bunch of people on the way out, then suddenly the press makes them a celebrity. 
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Legend
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I've always felt these things are just one last desperate plea for attention, because they know the media will give it to them. If they shoot themselves, nobody would care ... if they take out a bunch of people on the way out, then suddenly the press makes them a celebrity.
Which is the truly crazy part of it all, if you ask me:
In taking their own lives, they deny themselves the opportunity to witness the very attention they so desperately sought.
It's a waste in every way imaginable..
"too many notes, not enough music-"
#GMStong
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Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Shooting at mall in Oregon
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