August 20, 2007
In a recent interview with Destructoid, Columbine survivor Brooks Brown harshly criticized Dr. Jerald Block's theory that a parental ban from playing Doom was at least in part behind the 1999 school shooting rampage.Brown, left, co-author of No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind Death at Columbine said:
Doc Block was wrong with his essential premise. He claims that Eric and Dylan were banned from their computers for quite a long time... we actually know factually they used their computers for games throughout that year and a half, as well as for various game editing, video editing, and writing...
I grew up with Dylan - my parents and his were good friends.. He introduced me to Ninja Gaiden, and I introduced him to Mortal Kombat. He was my best friend. We stayed friends throughout junior and high school, but made other friends as well... Once at Columbine, I met Eric through Dylan...
[Regarding Dr. Block's theory that] games create a world that people, when taken away from the world, murder children. Therefore, the games are not to blame. I beg to differ. While I agree with some degree of personal responsibility, if someone addicted to heroin robs a store to get his fix, heroin shares the blame. And if games are, as he says, so addictive that kids can go through such extreme withdrawals they murder, games are to blame.
And everyone cheered his thoughts as pro-gamer?
Comments
Brown's argument is compelling nevertheless, and many of the things he says makes sense. The shocking condition he discloses about Columbine High School's management and administration is starkly revealing, and his idea that a whole mess of events led to the shooting is quite logical. About the only things that I didn't agree with were his ideas that religion and competitive sports should be removed from school.
Competitive sports, although it does attract a number of, to be frank, assholes, is not a bad thing in spirit. It only becomes bad if the administration and student body stoop to elevate the players to ridiculous status. In the same thread, religion might lead to some egotistical preening, but many religious people do NOT try to hold their perceived "holy" status above others. I myself am an atheist, but I respect the rights of others to believe in religion because I recognize that religion offers people important things such as a code of ethics and hope. However, I do not appreciate it when a religious person comes up to me and tries to convert me to their religion. In the same manner, I don't try to push my atheism on someone who believes in God.
@ Black Manta
I read the article you mentioned by Wong, and I found it quite an interesting and amusing read. I myself already believed and understood most of the content, but it stated ideas that should be understood by any game critic, regardless of stance, in an easily readable manner. I also liked his article on "The Ultimate War Sim" (very good).
@ Jack Thompson
What can I say that hasn't already been said? I address you with tact and reserve because I am familiar with etiquette, although the same cannot be said about everyone on the Internet (unfortunately), and this applies to this site as well. However, you continually address us, by which I refer to the polite, considerate viewers in this site, with a general lack of professional courtesy and respect. It is a breach of forum etiquette to randomly post entries that do not relate to the topic being discussed, and as you have broken this rule several times, I would like to ask you in a dignified manner to please send any announcements you have to Dennis if you wish to have it announced. Additionally, the word "Hooah!" is a word generally used by the armed forces. Since I am relatively certain that you have NOT served, I would ask that you refrain from using this word. Finally, I have noticed that you have a bad habit of posting something in a forum and then not responding to criticisms and comments upon your comments. As this is a form of debate, it is only fair that you respond to criticisms of your statement, even if you respond only to the criticisms that are logical and answerable (which unfortunately, and I will agree with you here, are not all of the criticisms).
That's just it; he doesn't, hence why he trolls here.
In the future, please cite your sources whenever possible. If you have a valid, reliable source and are not misinterpreting it, then you can talk about how games turn kittens into killers, metaphorically.
Think about it in terms of logic:
(also note that kittens = gamers and killers = criminals in the following logical assertion)
FACTS:
* Not all killers are kittens, not all kittens are killers
* Some killers are kittens, and some kittens are killers
Picture a Venn Diagram now (the one with the intersecting circles), where one circle represents killers and the other represents kittens. I don't have exact numbers, but considering the number of cases reported (here and otherwise) where kittens have been killers, those two circles will have a very small intersection point. Let's be generous and assert that every kitten you have accused of being a killer is true. The circles representing those populations are still extremely small. My guess is that, of the total population, at most 5% is both kitten and killer. There is very likely a different population that has a greater intersection with the killer population. Maybe, gangs and poverty-stricken families? With a stronger intersection, reducing this other population is more likely to reduce the killer population as well. For example, provide opportunities for poor families to be less poor. At least to a point where they don't find it necessary to commit crimes in the hopes of gaining their fare.
Anyway, there wasn't really a point to all that. It's just fun to make logical assertions despite the fact that opponent is too caught up in his own reasoning to take a step back and look at the possible merit of another person's point of view.
Fire is caused by oxygen AND heat AND fuel. Oxygen, alone, does not cause fires. Heat does not cause fires.
With this logic, violent video games DO NOT cause violent acts. I swear to you, Jack, I have seen many people who play violent video games that do not commit violent acts. Perhaps there is a CHANCE that violent video games are a PART of this equation, but much like oxygen, they should not be seen as the cause.
If A= violent video games, then maybe the equation is A+B+C-D+F-G= Real World Violence.
Jack, no one in this chat room or anyone else I know wishes harm upon any other person. We all would like to see an end to this violence. So why don't you help us all, with you vast resources, determine ALL the factors that led to these awful acts?
The goal is to prevent these acts. That's find what was UNIQUE about these killers. Playing violent games, again, is not unique. Many non-killers play them.
Good point...
But Jack can't be on the other side of the debate, as he doesn't debate. I don't recall him ever trying to refute or claims or even back up his own after we poke holes in his arguments. He swoops in, blabs about the same crap he has stated many times before, ad naseum, regardless of the fact we've proven said statements before over and over again.
And then eventually the rampage will assue and the stupid people will beat up the smart person.
Cause that is just the unnatural order of the human race. Survival of the dumbest.
Who are these four so-called "experts"?
And you never had a "mountain of evidence", except in your own delusions.
This case in Alabama will go down in flames, as history is against the classless disgraceful families of the three police officers. Ozzy Osbourne beat a lawsuit over his song "Suicide Solution", Judas Priest beat a similiar lawsuit, and Oliver Stone beat a lawsuit over the movie "Natural Born Killers". The same result(Take-Two winning in Alabama) will happen.
Practice what you preach, jabroni: Grow up and get a life.
Seriously...quit saying "hooah", that's a cheer for the armed forces and their supporters and as everyone can tell, you are neither.
What I do know is that although he played video games alot especially the game doom, that doesn't change what he did. That doesn't change his actions. You can be addicted to a number of things, drugs, porn, video games, etc., but here's the thing, just because he was addicted to video games, didn't mean he didn't have a choice not to shoot the school. You want the truth? Here it is, he CHOSE to shoot the school, he wasn't forced by any means, he CHOSE to shoot the school because of his own twisted mind. No matter what we are addicted to, we have a choice to act on it or not, and it is because of the power of choice that HE himself is to blame, NOT drugs, NOT porn, and NOT video games, and to say otherwise is an insult to the victims, the families, and to america. It's easier to blame everything else to avoid personal responsibility, but that is the truth, we have a choice for every one of our actions, to deny that is sensless and ignorant. Now here is the biggest question though, do we choose to accept this fact and take responsibility, or blame everything else in a shamful attempt to avoid the truth or attempt to get something out of your tragedy? Obviously Jack's chosen his answer already.
if someone addicted to heroin robs a store to get his fix, heroin shares the blame. And if games are, as he says, so addictive that kids can go through such extreme withdrawals they murder, games are to blame.
"
sorry but you can't blame this stuff for someone's actions. they are inanimate objects. it's the person's fault that they got addicted to the stuff in the first place so 100% of the blame goes to the person who did the crime. even though you are addicted to heroin you still have a choice.
We have four experts in our Alabama case, featured on 60 Minutes, who all testified before Congress and in our case on the causal link between violent video games like Doom and teen violence.
The video game industry has absolutely no evidence–none–to the contrary.
You gamers can try to wish away this mountain of evidence, but it ain’t gonna happen. Hooah!
1.We have four experts in our Alabama case, featured on 60 Minutes, who all testified before Congress and in our case on the causal link between violent video games like Doom and teen violence.
Four experts in an Alabama case that you aren't in. Oh wow. You paid 4 people to lie to Congress. That's a big step. No one has ever made up numbers like that.
The 'casual' link eh? So its a link that you can't make definitively, but if you look hard enough you'll find it?
2.The video game industry has absolutely no evidence–none–to the contrary.
Except for the 200 million American gamers and the 100 million American children who played this game and others and never murdered anyone. And all the studies to the contrary. And the fact that you're a liar and anyone with half a brain knows it.
3.You gamers can try to wish away this mountain of evidence, but it ain’t gonna happen. Hooah!
You're making a mountain of your molehill of bullshit, and eventually it will collapse around you, and YOU, Mr Thompson, will be left smelling of the bullshit you've been flinging all your days.
As for saying Hooah, once again, you have done no service for our country, so why do you think you have the right to say that? EVER?
And he's not "afraid of placing responsibility in the individual", you jackasses. He just used the heroin addict analogy to prove a point.
It's a well-known fact that the presence of graffiti in an area causes the crime rate to go up because it gives people the impression that breaking the law is OK. But getting caught for doing something and saying "the graffiti and my bad childhood made me do it" is still a BS argument. But if people made every one of their choices in some sort of a moral and social vacuum, then what would be the point of having situational psychology?
8.5 Million copies of that game were sold (according to the charts I looked at). So what percentage of people are affected by this game? Less the 1%? I would hardly call that an epidemic Jack-o.
my TI-83 says its .00000353%
seriously how did you fucking not get shot by a baliff on order from a judge yet
While i can understand your logic and all, it's not to say that your wrong or right, this issue is far to complex and has far to many factor to be blaming it on anything other then the actions of the shooters. While you could make an argument against games, you could do the same for guns, school officials, and the parents. Games are just a way for Guys like Harris and Klhebold to get out of being held accountable for there actions. Course, in ther case, they aren't around anymore anyway, and people need someone to blame. So they attack games. Same as it ever was.
@ Jt.
I read all the documents for the alabama case JT, and I seem to recall an order revoking your license in that state which states you can't have anything to do with that case, yes?
Or did you just decide to ignore it that order, and are violating the law as a result.
Also, I've read a number of evidence lists, witness lists, and more, and there strangly, no actual "Experts" on it. Theres some well known Lobbists but unless you have any names to back your claims, then your simply blowing smoke.
Prove it or shut up jt. Whats the matter, afraid?
These are good points except for one slight yet ever so big problem. Games and Heroin aren't sentient beings nor are they organisms. They don't exactly tell you to kill or commit haneous acts because you've been deprived of them. Now its there's abslutely no doubt that an addiction will cause someone to do some stupid stuff, but lets say I went in GTA, stole some cars, and then my disc shattered. Unlikely, but lets say it happened. So that automatically means I'm gonna go out and steal some cars on the street because I can't do it in a game?
But, how many cases, opened or closed, have linked video games to violence? How many people have commited a crime in the name of video games?
I want you to take that number, and apply it to copies sold.
So, lets say that 3 cases were brought up where the suspects said they got the idea from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
8.5 Million copies of that game were sold (according to the charts I looked at). So what percentage of people are affected by this game? Less the 1%? I would hardly call that an epidemic Jack-o.
More people are killed yearly from Shark Attacks, and more people are Killed Yearly from being struck by lightning then shark attacks. And more people are killed yearly by having their TV fall on them then being struck by lightning.
I just don't see the epidemic...so please, show me where it is?
First, I have seen Brooks Brown on TV before. And in most of his appearances when he's being interviewed by the news, they seem to want to lump him in with the anti-gaming crowd as one of those people who say that games were the cause and are a major problem. I should have known in this age of media manipulation and sound bites that that view could have been a distorted one, and it looks like I was right, because the truth is that he isn't. In fact, more than once he loudly denounces Jack Thompson, calling him an "asshole" and "alarmist." So to say he's anti-gaming is very far from the truth.
What I found was a very thoughtful article and disturbingly very true. I may be an adult, but I remember exactly what being teased and bullied in school was like. I was, as he put it, an "injustice collector." I remembered and still remember all the bad things that were done to me. And without proper guidance, without being able to talk to the right people, that anger does build and build.
Brooks was right on the money in regards to the jock culture at school and the apathy from teachers and the school adminstration (whose hands are tied more often than not when faced with disciplining students). I also agreed how having religion forced down your throat can also grate on you.
I can see where he's getting at regarding video games and how pop culture affects you. You'd be a fool not to admit it. Haven't you ever cried during the sad part in a movie? Don't you get pumped up when your favorite song comes on? Just because you admit it however, doesn't mean that you're wrong and Jack Thompson's right. He is still wrong. To find out why, read the first part of David Wong's article about him. In short...
If you can successfully hold Rock Star Games responsible when some kid shoots a policeman, then you've got to hold a thousand hack authors responsible when a serial killer turns up. Jack likes to say the games are "training" the kids to kill, but no video game gets as instructive and detailed about how to commit the crime as the paperbacks at your local Wal-Mart.
This is the fatal flaw of censorship. There is no logical stopping point. All drama contains conflict and much of that conflict is expressed as violence. Ask any Shakespeare fan. Besides, will any game "train" me on how to get away with a crime as well as the average episode of CSI? So where do you stop?
I found his particular angle on adverstising interesting, especially in light of yesterday's story. He's right if you think about it. It is all a matter of demographics. Advertisers are simply catering to whatever their target audience wants or thinks they want. That's all. The rest is up to them. And if a person is already psychotic and inclined to violence, then that's what they decide to do. It sort of goes back to that idea that anything can set off an unstable person at the right place and right time.
I don't think it was exactly fair for Brown to lump Block in with Thompson, but that's his opinion. For the most part, though, I agreed with everything else he said.
I should really be posting this on Destructoid I guess, but I really want to thank Brooks for that interview and would personally want to shake his hand. It also would be nice if he came here to have a discussion with us.
And for the thousandth time he's just going to ignore it, so save your breath.
(Got nothing else to say, as I see no point.)
Still, I think it would be better to be rid of him anyway, he only serves to cause both and wasted time even for the opposition, I would much rather have a rational opponent than Jack, Even if the next guy is rational and competent, it only means hed try for mroe realitic chnaged and maybe even go for the parental guidance apect that we're shouting about.
its a service not only to us, the opposition and the field of law to get rid of Jack, its a service rendered to the entire human race that scum like him are kept out of the important decisions.
In modern day Jack is to the Video Game Industry as Ted Haggard is to Atheists. They both win more for my side by making their side look really stupid.
Can we actually take Jacks quotes to anyone about his supposed personal involvement in a case he was kicked from and have him reprimanded. I'm sure dennis wont mind confirming his IP for this purpose.
Do we take it to the judge himself? Add it to the case against him at the florida bar? what?
If we want Jack to stop his ignorant, bigoted ranting against the game industry we have to be active about it, I'm not sure if it got deleted in that spamfilter business a short while ago but i remember there was a direct comment from him saying that he was still involved without our knowledge.
I've shit out gorier things than doom. No seriously.
I've also learned enough from comment boards that just because someone says he's JT, attorney, does not me he is THE JT, attorney. It could just as easily be someone trying to make him appear foolish.
It is not "your" case, you were removed from it and your licence to practice law in Alabama revoked due to your outlandish and offensive behaviour.
" featured on 60 Minutes, who all testified before Congress and in our case on the causal link between violent video games like Doom and teen violence."
I could be featured on 60 minutes and testify before congress that there is a giant pink bunny called Maurice who lives on the moon, but it doesn't make me correct. Also, it is very hard to testify about something that does not exist, as there is no causal link between violent games and violent behaviour. Many researchers have put forward the THEORY that this is the case, basing this theory on research that has used methods that have been shown up to be flawed.
"The video game industry has absolutely no evidence–none–to the contrary."
As said above, the burden of proof lays with those that are trying to link violence in game with real life violence. As such, there is NO evidence which proves a causal link between video games and violence. Correlations between violent imagery and aggressive behaviour? Certainly. But aggression does not equal violence.
"You gamers can try to wish away this mountain of evidence, but it ain’t gonna happen."
You can try and wish that this mountain of evidence existed, and that what little evidence you think you have wasn't discounted by numerous courts as insubstantial, but it ain't going to happen. To reiterate, there is NO causal link between video game violence and real life violent behaviour. Saying that current research supports this view is at best a wild extrapolation and exaggeration of the research, and at worst, an agenda serving lie. In court. Which would be perjury.
I'm sure the Alabama judge would love to know you claiming this.
Also, you're working to circumvent and destroy the very same freedoms that the men and women of our armed forces are fighting to protect, that my father over two and a half decades ago was fighting to protect, so you have absolutely NO RIGHT to use that saying, since you are working to take away the freedoms that people who ACTUALLY put their lives on the line are protecting.
Hell, you want a proven murderer to go free because you think that a game company should take the rap for this. You are advocating the release of murderers and rapists because you think a game company is responsible for their actions, not they themselves.
You're a sick, SICK man. You're not out to protect kids, otherwise you wouldn't have demanded out personal information. You're only out to line your wallet and to forge your own world
You can have evidence that shows no statistical increase in violence among gamers, no long-term negative effects from playing games, no correlational links between killers and whether or not they played games, and so on and so forth. All these things have been shown in the past.
Remember the burden of proof? Basic logic 101. Also remember the negative proof fallacy: "X is true because you have no proof that X is false" is not a valid argument.
I have an idea for you, Jack. I hope you consider this carefully. I'm going to make a statement and I want you to show me evidence that I'm wrong.
"Step on a crack, break your mother's back."
Wheel out scientists who say that there's no connection between your footfall and another person at another point in time and space. Wheel out statisticians who will assert that there is no correlation between parents' broken spines and children's pavement activities. Rationalists will argue that there's no reason why where you drop your plates should affect the health of your biological parent.
Meanwhile, I bring out a few cases where people have had broken backs and demonstrate that their kids did, in fact, step on cracks when they were younger.
Prove me wrong.
Glad to hear I'm not the only one that could tell that he was criticizing the logic of "games are hyper-addictive" and those that applauded the faulty logic; rather than blaming games.
Anyways, it's a very interesting interview. I'd say that Mr. Brown is spot on in his remarks.
Problem is when we try to break that stereotype, some idiot comes in and sets the argument back a full year
I've actually READ what most numbskulls like yourself consider a 'mountain of evidence'. What the majority of it comes to is essentially "People who play video games are more competitive than people who are sitting in a recliner for thirty minutes and act somewhat more aggressively than others". That's the clinical side.
All this extraneous BULLSHIT you claim is evidence of video games causing violence is nothing more than a mess of conjecture, bigotry, and logical fallacy intended to confuse and manipulate the technologically inept into believing the same old hype about how "The games are hurting the children".
Face it you mentally decrepit little twit, games are no more harful than the average game of Chess. If you can convince the world that Chess is going to destroy the children, then, and only then, you might stand a snowballs chance in hell of 'defeating' the game industry.
Until then, intelligent people are going to walk all over you while you sit back and shout about how everyone who disagrees with you is part of a conspiracy against you.
You LOSE, Good day Sir.
Tad DeMartelaere, Free Thinking human being.
An opinion that has been dismissed as evidence by the courts is poor evidence, no matter what congress thinks about. A mountain of shit still remains shit.
And there has not been a casual link between violence and videogames found in any official study. You keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. That is the essence of insanity.
We keeping doing the same thing over and over again, expecting the same result everytime, so we are quite sane.
Jack, your lies alone should be enough to get you kicked out by the Florida Bar.
if you and your "experts" are right about doom and games like it, you would be seeing MILLIONS of school shootings. the shear fact that you are not is more than enough evidence to discredit your accusations.
An edit button here sure would be nice. ^_^
just cause you got some guys who figured out how to make fake degrees on a computer doesnt mean you have experts it means you are commiting perjury