WTH am I doing?? I

Ok. For my first ‘WTH am I doing??’ post, this is what I’ve been doing for most of the past 1 hour and 30 minutes:

I’ve been looking up strip clubs in Melbourne. And OMG one of the world’s top 10 is in Melbourne o.O

wait, did I just try to do more research on that particular club??!

WTH AM I DOING??!!

…I’ve lost it. This is evidence that I’m going nutters.

Somebody just beat the sense back into my head, please??

The fuss is on Virginia Tech — but why?

Recently the hype has been on regarding the VTech killings in America. There have been loads of articles, outpourings of sympathy, fingers pointed everywhere, and yadda yadda yadda.

But the only first decent editorial that I’ve read on the Virginia Tech massacre so far is from 19ActionNews.com : http://www.woio.com/Global/story.asp?S=6387732. Why do I like it, you ask? Because it tells us to just grieve and stop blaming. Because it doesn’t try to analyse, place more importance on this event, or express dramatic horror at the figures. Because it just sympathises, then moves on.

….

To be honest, I’m sick of all the fuss that’s going up because of what I see as being caused by the nature of the victims’ nationality.

Don’t flame me for this. I mean, when you’re reading so many other statistics and you know that so many avoidable deaths are happening all over the world that are NOT being reported on, you just get jaded and disillusioned, and you get tired.

The page Informed Comment (Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion) posted even larger death numbers on the top of its page the last time I looked at it. Yesterday, Kerbala, ‘one of Iraq’s best protected cities because of its holy status’, had 170 deaths. One hundred and seventy? That’s way more than the 33 that were killed in VTech. Yet how much will this episode be discussed? How much sympathy will be shown towards the Iraqians?

A professor from UMich stated the following on Think Progress: Remember that we’re all concerned, as we should be, about these events at Virginia Tech today. In Iraq this is a daily event. Imagine how horrible it would be if this kind of massacre were occurring every single day. And the people of Iraq feel that either the Americans are not stopping it or they’re actually causing it.

Yes, Iraqians are being killed en mass, and not only the civilians but the teachers are being targeted. But is there any big news-coverings of that on our papers? Are editorials being put up, and letters being written in the bulk, and outflowings of pity and words of condolences to the survivors or urges for better security for Iraqian educators?

No.

Let’s not forget to progress on to thinking about Africa. So many millions dying every year due to avoidable reasons and human apathy.

…Where are the articles on that??

A fellow, Nic, gives all a pretty good piece of his mind on the subject in his blogpost, One Day of Silence for the USA, How Many for Africa?, and I have to say that I agree with him.

There are so many others suffering NOW in the PRESENT, even as we look BACK at the PAST. Why can’t we just try to save those that we CAN save, and stop pointing the fingers at those who caused the horrors of the past? We can’t undo what has happened and stop the milk from being spilt, but we can reach out a hand and drag the flailing swimmer to safety, or give a hand to the weak.

Are some people somehow more important than others, that their deaths have to be acknowledged and others’ don’t? Are some people’s misfortunes somehow easier to overlook, because they are in a country where misfortune seems more widespread?

I think not.

Australia fights a lot for human rights. Why can’t those rights apply to all?

Anime Recoms, I

2×2 Shinobuden is about a kunoichi (female ninja)-in-training, Shinobu, and the ‘training’ as well as ‘tasks’ that her Master sets her =P with a funny plotline, clueless ‘heroine’, astute Kaede-san, weird ‘Master’, etc, this hilarious, nonsensical anime comedy seems set to start you off laughing and shaking your head ^_~ on the same level as Galaxy Angels, perhaps? Don’t miss it!!!

Jack Thompson and the Post Hoc Fallacy: Violent CGs cause Aggressive Behaviour?!

I was flipping through a couple of old assignments and essays just now (due to MSN not working… again!!), and in randomness I stumbled upon the following Issues title: The relationship between Violent Computer/Video Games (VCGs) and the Rising Trend of Aggresive Behaviour among Gamers. It had been part of my coursework research for the English as a Second Language component of my VCE exams, and I remember being pissed off by the presumptiousness of the statement as well as having a lot of fun disproving those words.

Something about this then triggered the not-as-distant-as-I-would-prefer-it-to-be memory of the Economics Mid-Sem test, and of studying about the Post Hoc Fallacy, ie the assumption that J causes K just because it occurs before K. Like how Xmas shopping brings about Christmas ^^ (if only, huh?)

It also reminded me of this dumb sentence that I saw while researching information for my EIL Group Presentation:

“This is not rocket science. When a kid who has never killed anyone in his life goes on a rampage and looks like the Terminator, he’s a video gamer,” Jack Thompson told MSNBC.com.

What the HELL?? Hey, don’t blame everything on gamers, dude. I don’t know what vendetta you have against us, but why are you blaming every bad egg that turns up as being a product of this hencoop instead of the next?

So… do Violent Computer Games really cause Aggressive behaviouristics just because there was a correlational rise in aggressive behaviour amongst youngsters following the increase in the distributional amount of violent computer games? Does aggressive behaviour increase just because more violent computer games are manufactured? Do people turn into mass murderers just because they are gamers? Or is this just another example of the Post-Hoc Fallacy?

The researchers that I quoted for my SAC obviously thought not (for the first one and second, lol).

One such researcher was Professor Jeffery Goldstein, Ph.D. from the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands. In his article, “Does Playing Violent Video Games Cause Aggressive Behaviour?“, he firmly stated that ‘correlational studies can tell us nothing about whether violent video games cause aggression; even if we accept that there is a correlation between amount of time spent playing (violent) video games and aggressive behavior, there is no reason to think that games are the cause of aggression (Anderson & Dill, 2000; Colwell & Payne, 2000; Roe & Muijs, 1998)’.

True, yes? Hmmm…. So what if there seems to be a correlation between violent gaming and aggressive behaviour? Hell, video games have been around for a lvery ong time. Street Fighters. Guilty Gear. Two-on-two combats, multiple-enemy combats, RPGs, MMORPGs, etc…. These are not a new occurance. Why blame crime on them? At the same time, I would prefer to point out that aggressive behaviour has existed forever. It was there when the first arguments between men broke out. It was there when a contender was first pushed in anger/annoyance. It was there when the first alpha tried to establish its dominance over the others.

For those who insist on saying that correlational studies are there to prove a point, however, here too is a little gift: ‘…there are also some correlational studies which find no significant relationship [between violent computer games] with aggression (e.g., Sacher, 1993; van Schie & Wiegman, 1997)’.

That should shut them up. Will it shut Jack Thompson up though? Hmmm. Perhaps he should be sent the following paragraph as well:

For those who would try to argue that the second set of correlational studies differed from the “aggression due to VCGs” studies because the studied participants were mostly passive and non-aggressive beings to start with, I present a rebuttal from Goldstein, (1999): ‘What is called “video game violence” is simulated aggression, different from the real thing in countless ways–they cannot “reinforce” aggressive behavior since players do not engage in any aggressive behavior in the first place.’

Wow… is it just me or does Goldstein have a really good point there? For example, I can kill half a thousand soldiers in 45 minutes when I’m tapping away at XTreme Warriors, but if you asked me to kill 500 ants in the same amount of time, I’d balk. Not because ants are icky or anything, but because I’m aware that each and every one of them is a living being with a right of survival (whereas the animated characters in VGs are not). I don’t get more aggressive just because I play violent VGs–all I do when I kill legions within VGs is release stress and tension, which could build up into something much more nasty as the Virginia Tech story illustrates. And I don’t think other gamers are that dumb, either.

In fact, Sorensen & Jessen (2000) in their article “It isn’t real: Children, computer games, violence and reality” agree that ‘the fact that the player himself must conduct violent deeds… actually makes children aware that their actions take place in a fictitious universe; computer games are in fact “games” with their own rules…they are aware that these rules do not apply outside the realm of the game, with the exception that children can include elements and rules from the games in their play (p. 121)’.

See?

It’s not that when playing a violent computer game, all we can think of is that “Oh YESSSSSS we now have the power to create and destroy, and destroy and destroy and destroy”. We are actually AWARE that this is not real. All I think, for instance, is how to get to the final objective in the most effective way–which usually involves mass homicide since having a few thousand people hot on your back and blocking your escape routes is not my idea of being efficient.

Sorensen & Jessen (2000) further state in page 120 of their article that ‘The violent elements in computer games are attractive as spectacular effects, but also because they prompt excitement and thrill… these effects contain an element of exaggeration, which is fully recognized by children… children’s fascination with violent computer games should not be mistaken for a fascination with violence in the real world” as they are “a parallel to the violent and ‘rough’ play traditionally found among boys”.

Oh yeah… true!!! Why not just say that aggressiveness has a correlation with gender, huh?? Hasn’t anyone noticed that the instigators of violence are –oh my what a revelation!– MALE???! Just look at Rugby. Notice any aggressive behaviour there, folks? Compare that with the worst that girls can think up. Merely catfights and word-slinging, and some marginalising bullying, I think. Certainly very few cases of aggression are linked to the female species!!

In line with that, I would like to include an observation that Gerard Jones made in his book, “Killing Monsters“: ‘Young girls often build upon… representations of strong women warriors as a means of building up their self confidence in confronting challenges in their everyday lives as female game characters are often portrayed as powerful and independent.’

That should explain why there are female gamers too, and not only guy gamers. But note the description/explanation for this phenomena — to build self-confidence. What does that have to do with violence or aggressiveness, hmm?

I should probably mention that Cooper & Mackie (1986) in a study that measures both aggressive play and aggressive behavior found that ‘violent video games affect the former and not the latter’.

Soooo…. aggressive play, do I hear anyone asking? What is the difference between aggressive play and aggressive behaviour? Well, perhaps by reading the words of Schutte et al., (1988) and Silvern & Williamson (1987) you will understand the difference: ‘observations of children…may confuse mock aggression (pretending to engage in martial arts) with real aggression (attempting to hurt someone)”, leading to “faulty conclusions” where “what appears to an observer to be aggressive behavior may instead be aggressive play, where there is no intent to injure anyone’.

Clear on that now? Play=no intent to injure; Behaviour=with intent to injure.

But we’re spiralling off the topic now.

So… back to the list of questions that I posed near the beginning of this blogpost.

1. Do Violent Computer Games really cause Aggressive behaviouristics just because there was a correlational rise in aggressive behaviour amongst youngsters following the increase in the distributional amount of violent computer games?

POV: I think we pretty much established that correlations mean nada, so this one is invalid.

2. Does aggressive behaviour increase just because more violent computer games are manufactured?

POV: If I’m not mistaken I also noted that aggressive behaviour existed way before violent CGs, and that people know the difference between games and reality, so that’s another blank fired at this theory.

3. Do people turn into mass murderers just because they are gamers?

POV: Considering that we have zillions of gamers in the world and only a handful of mass murderers, I think that this is safe to disprove.

4. Or is this just another example of the Post-Hoc Fallacy?

POV: Yes? No? Do people think that aggressive behaviour happens because there are violent computer games? …I don’t, but Mr Thompson sure does. Does anyone else think so? Only a 0.000001% of the world, maybe.

So yeah. Rambling (or whatever this is called) over.

Hope you had fun reading this 1555-word bitch of a blogpost ^^

Just for Kicks, IV

“Be ye angels?”
“Nay! We are but men!!”

The song here is Tribute by Tenacious D. There’s no real reason for this post. I just thought that the clip was interesting!!

If you really go through it though, it’s quite interesting how several themes were incorporated into the MV that might not have been so evident in the lyrics themselves.

Let’s start from the beginning, where Mr Guitar Guy doesn’t want to go into the ‘room’ because it’s not ‘a real recording studio’. That sorta reminds me of what people tend to do; not bother to try or to do things because it doesn’t seem like it’d do any use. Yup, that’s you and me alright. Why do something that doesn’t seem worth the effort to do, even if it might help you gain something in terms of maturity?

Mr Optimistic Singer sees the ‘karaoke box’ as a place which ‘has everything’ though, and promptly proceeds to break down all barriers in his path (note the scissors, amigo =D). Kinda similar to how we damn the consequences to hell sometimes and just live for the moment, eh? Like wag classes without thinking about what you’re missing by skipping this lecture or not doing that homework.

The demon in the path and his crazy command, and their enthusiastic or rather, ‘cool’ reply? Reminiscent of perhaps how we put obstacles in our path (omg that demon wasn’t real, riiiight?) and then proceed to barge forward to trample over it with no concept of failure. Like setting a high goal for yourself and thinking that ’sure’, that’d be easy to do.

The outside/inside difference? Rather like how other people don’t always have the same perception on issues as you do. Like how something might seem incredible to those involved in it, but incredibly idiotic to those not ‘in the room’. Perception of things and placement of importance as well as self-image, I suppose. Like how those ‘You Think You Can Dance?’ failures regarded their talents as dancing that the judges were too dumb to appreciate.

The comment by Mr Singing Optimist that ‘what was sang that night didn’t sound anything like this song’ echoes my feelings on how something can feel really good/bad as it happens, then make you think: was it like that? in later reflections. Everyone must have had an experience like that before, where they thought one thing when caught up in the moment, and then thought differently of that experience when their heads were cooler. Or maybe it just shows how things can mutate over time? Hmmmmm.

And the last part? LOL. Just goes to show how things are not what they seem… ^_~