September 27, 2007 -
The organization of far-out political figure Lyndon LaRouche, which blamed the Virginia Tech massacre on video games, has now targeted Halo 3.An article on the LaRouche website (see: Halo 3: The Third Wave of Destroying the U.S.) rhetorically asks:
What kind of perverse mind would develop such a thing to lure in so many youthful and vibrant minds?
...How does one young adult get corrupted into becoming a psychotic-mass killer, or a mere useless drone for the likes of... [Vice-president] Dick Cheney? The most obvious answer to any thinking individual— is to dehumanize the image of human beings.
There are many tedious details and complexities that go behind the production of such games as Counterstrike, World of Warcraft, Entropia Universe, EVE-Online and Halo 3. However, once that dehumanizing process has been accomplished, the ability of making useless wars (like that of Iraq, today) and mass killing of innocent people, as in the case of the Virginia Tech incident, are stepping stones for the unleashing of a New Dark Age...
GP: Thanks to longtime GP reader Soldat Louis for the tip!
Comments
Yeah, cause we NEVER did THAT before video games... /sarcasm
What's that? Germans are gorillas trying to rape our women and replace our way of life with their 'kulture'?
Gosh
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/39.1/images/frese_fig03b.jpg
You forgot to mention that they honestly believe that theres a government conspiracy to cover-up any video game evidence from the VT shootings.
I thought that was JT.
And what makes even more sense is that LaRouche is actually an alien and is trying to stop Halo, because he fears that it will teach gamers how to fight against the alien invasion.
No, Jack is a moron, but he's not THAT stupid. He just believes that there is a huge gaming community conspiracy to have him disbarred (in reality, I think he's the one trying to get him disbarred). Larouche believes that Cho (the V-Tech killer) played Counter-Strike, the government knows, and are thus covering it up. Why? Because the government is responsible for all violent video games and uses them to desensitize the next generation of soldiers to have a more effective military.
Jack believes its a media blackout/cover-up, but Larouche actually believes this goes up to the top. Kinda makes me think of the South Park episode (I forget the name) where Stan and Kyle investigate the 9/11 conspiracy only to learn that there is none. It's all a big conspiracy to make people think there are multiple huge conspiracies that the government is involved in. That our government knows and controls all. Even the President is in on it!
I have half a mind to run for office at some point, simply because I'm certain I couldn't possibly botch the job even half as bad as most of our current officials.
But, but, science is also evil. If anything, the vidya games distracted the workers from praying so god would hold the bridge up
Hush, they might hear you, while us guys are happy mechanized buggers and never ever go through metal detectors they'll never suspect plan B.
I hope section LambaKay keeps the ore coming otherwise we won't have anything to fire from our subs...
I've read the entire article about what he said or he worte.
He is really, really wrong.
"Could not these youthful minds spend their precious time working to push the frontiers of science by discovering fusion power or rediscovering the universal principles in Classical physical science and art? What about the space program? Are people being inspired in these areas, to conquer the difficult scientific problems mankind has never been challenged by before?"
With out games and other mass media, I would have never gotten interested in science. Shows like Start Trek & Star Gate, and games like starcraft & other sci-fi stuff inspired me to study physic and other science.
"Could this not be another form of distraction to deter one’s mind away from solving or even thinking about the global economic breakdown crises?"
No, it not another distraction. Gaming industry is helping the economy. It a billion dollar industry. It is the last generation's fault for bad economy. I my self blame credit cards. Also games like The Sims teaches money management.
"How does one young adult get corrupted into becoming a psychotic-mass killer, or a mere useless drone for the likes of Anti-Nation-State Fascists, such as Felix Rohatyn, George Shultz, or even their dupe, Dick Cheney?"
All of the influence that can mess up youth are can all be related to the last generations. Last generations caused war, they taught hate, they mess up the kids. Not the media, but bad history and bad parenting.
"The most obvious answer to any thinking individual— is to dehumanize the image of human beings...... However, once that dehumanizing process has been accomplished, the ability of making useless wars... and mass killing of innocent people, as in the case of the Virginia Tech incident, are stepping stones for the unleashing of a New Dark Age."
Not true. I learn from games like Command and Conquer: Generals, Empire Earth, Medal of Honor, and Halo taught me that Human kinds should set their differences aside and unite together to stop poverty, illness, and global warming. I learn more about humanity from games.
The "dark age" will come if we let the last generation to continue with their hate, greed, arrogant, and selfishness. Games and other mass media can have the potential to teach us all to unite.
" One, is the mental psychosis of the vulnerable adolescent or young adult, who are gullible to these fictions.... the dehumanization process occurs in any instance, by the first-person shooter games’ precision to kill another object, or by the adoption of an arbitrary set of anti-scientific, anti-principled rules, like that of Second Life, or even the great Ministry of Truth—Wikipedia."
Joining the any military organization dehumanize any one. Not games. Games tell story not fact (at least most of the time). Second life offer escape from the harsh life reality (like how people go clubing or spa to relax). People can have fun in the digital world and work and stress in the real world.
Wikipedia spread knowage to people who can't reach a library. It open up knowage to those who are not previlage enough to go to college.
The VT shooting is sad, but not caused by gaming or mass media. The shooter had mental illness for a long time.
Sorry for the extreamly long comment.. but I just really want to share how I feel about this.
Yea I'm pretty pissed off about him lumping gamers into the whole Dick Cheney wagon! I mean we gamers play virtual War games and he plays real war games!
and those teens are nothing but little douchebags who run around saying how great LaRouche is for the country?
Damn...but lucky for us LaRouche is about as popular as the plague.
It isnt the greatest FPS ever made. It is however the greatest marketing campain ever for a game. But i prefer not to have moon physics and the arcadish like style of the game. I like stuff a little more Tom Clancy style (one or two bullets = dead) but not compleatly. Something in the middle.
Besides, you cant argue with a guy who has that hat. So he wins by default.
Well less so. I enjoy watching a good documentary on the plague. I seriously doubt a millennium from now anyone is going to give two damns about LaRouche.
What kind, I must ask?
This just in, turns out the above following statement was to be applied to the LaRouche administration.
And I for one...
~Otaku-Man
He probably blamed Monopoly for the rise of capitalism as well.
*headdesk*
*headdesk*
Why is everyone obsessed over Halo, anyway? Because it's the most popular or something? As far as FPS go it's pretty mild with the blood for an M game, it's not like Gears of War for gore, or anything...I think they just seize upon it because it's one of the few games mentioned on the actual news or something.
I like how he claims the economy is worse than The Great Depression. As if the economy is entirely dependant on the Housing Markets, AND as if said market is really doing that bad. And I fail to see how a crappy bridge had much to do with the economy collapsing, perhaps he's pulling a Nostadamus and proclaiming that as the bridge collapsed, so too must the American economy.
Anyway. The man is rather insane. I don't think I'd bother posting stuff about this on this site anymore; the man doesn't have any political persuasion at all, he's not like the senators in California. He has even less relevance than Jack Thompson. And he is absolutely fruity.
"Dark age" *fffft* The tin-foil hat picture is right, this is the age old "we don't understand it, it is to blame for all-of/almost-all of our society's problems, and as power crazed people we want to control it all" with a good sized serving of paranoia to go along with it.
"“There are many tedious details and complexities that go behind the production of such games as Counterstrike, World of Warcraft, Entropia Universe, EVE-Online and Halo 3.”"
Whenever stuff like that rambling appears, I can't help but think of someone who has read/watched too many science-fiction novels/movies and crack-pot conspiracy sites. And the "behind the scenes" stuff is probably another way of saying "we don't really understand it all, or care to, will just make connections up."
As for their choice of games, "EVE-Online"? Is this one training us for conquering the universe? " Entropia Universe" looks like your typical SecondLife with virtual reality, macrotransactions and virtual money(get ready for the new dot.com, dot.com 2.0!).
Seesh, I am now getting nostalgic about the past; thinking about old technology like Virtual Reality, sci-fi novels I have read, and all those crummy "cyberspace" and "this is the future" flicks...
Hey, the military doesn't dehumanize. Dehumanization, while a term thrown about quite frequently, tends to be harder to achieve in thinking, mature individuals than the scaremongers suggest. Since the goal is not so much to make somebody less human as it is to make them care less about (certain) other humans, it's a process most effective when enjoined upon young children or the wilfully ignorant or blindly believing.
In the latter respect, religions have often been abused as the driving forces for actions that only somebody who truly believes themselves superior, or others not true humans, could really buy into. Because dehumanization requires a sort of us-them mentality and/or an acceptance that human life is meaningless or taking it is easy, belief systems (such as those underpinning many guerilla or terorist forces) more successfully dehumanize their opponents than organizations like the U.S. Military.
For our military, which is more about training people to "do" than it is about training people to "believe", it's actually inefficient to try to dehumanize every enemy to the soldiers through any but mechanical means. In other words, it's generally emotionally/mentally easier on a soldier to kill if they don't have to see anything but a map, or a plane, and harder on them if they see a human sillhoutte or a face right next to them.
Soldiers may have to disengage (as they fight) from thinking of enemies as people in order to be able to do their jobs, but today's military training enables them to do their jobs regardless of beliefs about the enemy, not THROUGH beliefs of any inferiority. Instead, it humanizes that which we fight for--our nation, our friends, our lovers, our children, our military--and and uses training to overcome the difficulties of seeing an enemy as a human being.
Seriously, if the military could effectively dehumanize its enemies in the eyes of its soldiers, people wouldn't have nearly as many of the PTSD and other issues that are under-treated during war and prevalent after. Most (certainly not all) of the people saying that shooting a bunch of "people" in a video game dehumanize us don't have any idea what they're talking about. Things like ignoring the beggars as we walk past, deriding other races, abusing other sexes, discounting the suffering on the news, assuming rape or starvation fall under an SEP field--these can contribute to what we consider "dehumanization", often disturbingly successfully.
Firing at a human-shaped enemy in an arcade game? Not so much. But it looks as if LaRouche took a U-turn somewhere around "logic-ville" years ago, it's no surprise he doesn't realize he's a more effective tool for dehumanizing people that videogames or the military could ever be.
No, I'm not kidding.
Halo 3 + Marijuana = Still Lives with Mother
Halo 3 + Wikipedia = 1984
But Thompson and Grossman aren't as funny... and I already saw "serious people" taking LaRouche seriously (without knowing who he really was, of course).
The damage of Judeo-Christian religious doctrination far outweighs violent forms of media. Unlike media, which is strictly labeled as fantasy, genocidal fiction (under the threat of eternal torture) instills fear into children every day in this country. In the mind of a Christian, fantasy effectively becomes reality. Need I remind you why the dark ages remained so "dark?"
Wait a minute...didn't the Youth Movement discourage their followers from reading 1984? http://tinyurl.com/3bopmc
Eve-Online, by preparing our youth to build a vast galactic corporate structure; we train them to use whatever means necessary to increase the power of their own employer. By pulling in hundreds of thousands of these like minded children, we will soon see America taken over by massive corporate conglomerates who will have a monopoly on all key resources that an everyday citizen needs to keep their quality of life, such as Veldspar, Hemorphite, and even Mercoxit.