Video Game Conspiracy Theories

[exo_doc]

Stuff with tits and dead hookers.

LOL!!! Succinct and direct! I like that!

 

[exo_doc]

I may have come off as pissy because your comment seemed pissy towards me. Maybe I was wrong. btw- I do not take midol, prescription drugs or vaccinations.
I tend to agree with the lack of parenting observation but knowing how often these video games were played and seeing how they acted after playing them, I firmly believe the games influenced their behavior.

No vaccinations Pixel? I had all kinds of vacs in the Army a-a-and (*twitch*) I t-t-t-turned out (*twitch*) j-j-just f-f-fine......

But seriously, you do not vaccinate yourself for dangerous viruses?

 

[ProphetofOccam]

So there are like three violent video games, notwithstanding sequels? Wasteland, Grand Theft Auto, and Grand Theft Auto clones? Does that mean that non-PC gamers weren't playing violent video games before 1997?

I do like the idea that if a game has tits and dead hookers concurrently, only then is it violent. A game with dead hookers alone is passive. Just as interesting is the idea that, if they aren't meant to be implied concurrently, tits are somehow violent.

The real point is, the idea of what makes a piece of media violent is subjective. I'd like to know what people who dislike video games -- people over 60 and home schooled kids -- consider to be a violent game. On one end, all non-puzzle games can be argued as violent. Mario storms a kingdom and starts murdering sentient creatures, without regard, to save a single person who isn't in mortal danger. One the other end, it's recognized that the kind of violence in a game like Super Mario Brothers is abstract -- you don't see the actual damage or injuries caused to any of the creatures Mario destroys. So, are violent games, to these people, games with subjectively graphic depictions of violence? How someone considers Mortal Kombat to be a depiction of "graphic violence," without attempting a word pun, is beyond me. I can recognize, however, that there are people who feel many things are "violent" that I would consider tame. I've just always wondered what constitutes a violent video game to those people.

 

[pixelsmith]

No vaccinations Pixel? I had all kinds of vacs in the Army a-a-and (*twitch*) I t-t-t-turned out (*twitch*) j-j-just f-f-fine......

But seriously, you do not vaccinate yourself for dangerous viruses?

My mother was a nurse for 35 years and asked that I do not drink city water because of the fluoride and to never get a vaccination. She was told the same thing by more than one doctor at Mayo Clinic so she studied the research materials one of them gave her and made up her own mind.

 

[exo_doc]

My mother was a nurse for 35 years and asked that I do not drink city water because of the fluoride and to never get a vaccination. She was told the same thing by more than one doctor at Mayo Clinic so she studied the research materials one of them gave her and made up her own mind.

If you don't mind my curiosity, what did your mother find out? I'd be very interested to hear.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

I'm immune to video game influence.

 

[RonReyes]

"I do like the idea that if a game has tits and dead hookers concurrently, only then is it violent. A game with dead hookers alone is passive. Just as interesting is the idea that, if they aren't meant to be implied concurrently, tits are somehow violent."


Correlation does not imply causation.
But hey a turd in the hand is worth two in the bush.

[/quote]

 

[pixelsmith]

If you don't mind my curiosity, what did your mother find out? I'd be very interested to hear.

This was the mid seventies and I was not at all interested in what she found out. I remember she did tell me the fluoride was toxic and used in rat poison so it probably should not be consumed. Since then I have learned it is also an ingredient in many anti depressant meds. She also said it could make my teeth blotchy. The vaccine thing concerned her even more. She said some were probably ok but many vaccines contained things that should not be put in our body and that my own immune system was probably far more effective. Again, a few of the Doctors she worked with advised against vaccinations for any type of flu. My girlfriend works at Mayo and she has had one Doctor bugging her to get a flu shot and one Doctor advising against it saying he did not allow his children to get the flu shot either.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

That was all jokes, stellafeen. I just liked how it grammatically broke down.

Yeah, that game is violent. I didnt't think it counted since nobody likes it; it doesn't matter how one feels about game violence. Thematically, it's just GTA meets HALO meets Wasteland, which I'd argue could land it somewhere in the clone arena. It's also a PC title, which isn't typically the same demographic as had by console titles.

 

[Muadib]

I may have come off as pissy because your comment seemed pissy towards me. Maybe I was wrong. btw- I do not take midol, prescription drugs or vaccinations.
I tend to agree with the lack of parenting observation but knowing how often these video games were played and seeing how they acted after playing them, I firmly believe the games influenced their behavior.

It's cool, I honestly wasn't trying to be confrontational when I asked if it was just your opinion or if it was based on something you heard or read, I was genuinely curious. If I came off as pissy, I apologize as that wasn't my intention.

My position isn't that video games can't influence someone's behavior, just to be clear. When you're dealing with children who may be impressionable, it falls on the parent to teach them the difference between reality and fantasy and to let them know about how their actions in real life can have dire consequences and that there are no continues, extra lives or reset buttons.

 

[pixelsmith]

It's cool, I honestly wasn't trying to be confrontational when I asked if it was just your opinion or if it was based on something you heard or read, I was genuinely curious. If I came off as pissy, I apologize as that wasn't my intention.

My position isn't that video games can't influence someone's behavior, just to be clear. When you're dealing with children who may be impressionable, it falls on the parent to teach them the difference between reality and fantasy and to let them know about how their actions in real life can have dire consequences and that there are no continues, extra lives or reset buttons.

I absolutely agree. The parents do need better parenting skills for sure.

 

[Wade]

As a non-game player (no coordination) I'm not certain I have any insight to add here but if one is talking about the amount of violence in video games possibly influencing the amount of violence in society is this also a concern in other counties that have access to the same games but arguably lower violent crime rates ?

In the meantime let me start my own conspiracy. I think that the military knew 25 years ago that drone/robotic warfare would be the wave of the future thus they created warfare by proxy to get their potential future recruits battle ready.

 

[mike]

There has always been violence and other questionable stuff in video games, those poor space invaders.........
I remember playing the crescent hawks inception in 1988 and being able to step my 50 ton mech on people leaving a greasy red smear behind.

I remember my horror playing the getaway, not with the fact you could kill the other players, but with the detailed drug production warehouse, that was a virtual tutorial on large scale hydroponics setups.

I dont think as a blanket premise we can say games desensitise you and make you violent, but i do think in cases where an individual is already prone to such behavior from socio/economic or genetic predisposition, or other factors, they might exacerbate the condition.

But the reverse may also hold, i once listened to a debate on legalising brothels where a case was made that giving men access to such facilitys would reduce rape stats.
So maybe those with a bent towards violent behaviour might likewise get their fix from games rather than real life.

Like many questions its not black or white, but rather various shades of gray

 

[nameless]

anyone play Call of Cthulu?

 

[5tomidnite]

anyone play Call of Cthulu?

I was going to play it once. We made characters but as I was looking through the rule book I grew uninterested.

I see the game as going something like this:
- You see a little girl with her puppy.
- The little girl eats the puppy. she's possessed.
- Lose 3 sanity points.
- You check your watch.
- Your watch is really a minion of Cthulu in disguise.
- Lose 4 sanity points.
- You need to take a dumb.
- Your toilet bowl is actually a dimensional portal.
- Lose 5 sanity points.
And so forth and so on.

I mean I could be wrong

 

[exo_doc]

I was going to play it once. We made characters but as I was looking through the rule book I grew uninterested.

I see the game as going something like this:
- You see a little girl with her puppy.
- The little girl eats the puppy. she's possessed.
- Lose 3 sanity points.
- You check your watch.
- Your watch is really a minion of Cthulu in disguise.
- Lose 4 sanity points.
- You need to take a dumb.
- Your toilet bowl is actually a dimensional portal.
- Lose 5 sanity points.
And so forth and so on.

I mean I could be wrong

Wasn't quite like that, but keeping your sanity was a big part of the game. It was, after all, based on Lovecraft who thought insanity was the ultimate nightmare. I used to play back in the late 80's when I was stationed with a few guys who played. It was an ok game, I like D&D much better. At least with D&D, you didn't go insane and try to kill your team mates very often.

 

[pixelsmith]

Wasn't quite like that, but keeping your sanity was a big part of the game. It was, after all, based on Lovecraft who thought insanity was the ultimate nightmare. I used to play back in the late 80's when I was stationed with a few guys who played. It was an ok game, I like D&D much better. At least with D&D, you didn't go insane and try to kill your team mates very often.

killing team mates seems to be yet another way of desensitizing players to killing humans. Much like the DHS purchase of targets depicting pregnant woman, little kids, grandma, etc to help desensitize troops to fire on citizens.

 

[5tomidnite]

Wasn't quite like that, but keeping your sanity was a big part of the game. It was, after all, based on Lovecraft who thought insanity was the ultimate nightmare. I used to play back in the late 80's when I was stationed with a few guys who played. It was an ok game, I like D&D much better. At least with D&D, you didn't go insane and try to kill your team mates very often.

Well to be fair we were all getting tired of playing RPGs at the time. Introducing something where your sanity was a big part of the game was just not a good idea. I loved the idea of the game but in the end we played them as a means of escape from reality not to play something so dark in nature.

Since you've mentioned D&D I have to ask. Did your parents buy into the whole "Mazes & Monsters" propaganda?

 

[5tomidnite]

killing team mates seems to be yet another way of desensitizing players to killing humans. Much like the DHS purchase of targets depicting pregnant woman, little kids, grandma, etc to help desensitize troops to fire on citizens.

Lol that is a dark way of looking at it. You can also interpret it as these targets are needed to practice not shooting them when you see them in the heat of combat. Mind you the part of me that loves conspiracies wants to agree with you.

 

[exo_doc]

killing team mates seems to be yet another way of desensitizing players to killing humans. Much like the DHS purchase of targets depicting pregnant woman, little kids, grandma, etc to help desensitize troops to fire on citizens.

Do you think, honestly, that Americans could be trained to fire on innocent civilians?
I understand mind control and brainwashing would be a factor, but still.......surely there would be a high rate of ...balking?
I know there have been cases in the past such as the Kent State shooting, not to mention Ruby Ridge and Waco.
As a veteran, I can see how it could happen, but the emotional toll of such acts on agents who grew up in a western civilization would make their usefullness quite short before burnout. I don't think they could recruit enough viable agents for this to make a difference.
I don't want to die in a civil war.
I want to die on Mars as a radiation sick colonist.