yep everytime i play a violent game i go out and kill somebody
Rape,Physical Violence,Mental Abuse,ect are what causes people to have mental problems and can turn them into doing violent acts.
Also the claim that it causes kids to not get out and do other things and get fat,That is due to poor parenting and nothing else.Parents don’t want to take responsbility for anything anymore and this junk is trying to give poor parents another excuse of why there kids are acting out violence.
Well, that one’s pretty obvious to me. Anything that comes outta that “religion” is. I could say ‘no offense’, but don’t actually want to avoid offending those parties. I’ll rather concentrate on warning others. When we’re dealing with those things , we’re dealing with pure evil. Keep distance & watch your back.
I think you people are making too strong opposites here.
To say that a video game affects a person’s mind is not the same as saying “video games make people crazy”.
I know what I’m talking about, since I have been playing them since 1988… Not so much anymore though, since I have started to detest escapism quite a lot lately.
I think that we should strive to create a good “real” life instead of escape our (& worlds) problems. But this is only a personal opinion of course.
I certainly notice that the computer-induced trance leaves my head like full of “stuffing”. The thoughts aren’t flowing very well, and I feel low in energy. By trance I mean that if you are staring at a screen for 10 hours (or more) in a row (you know, the way the reeaally good games grab you), the brain does goe into a trance, very much like in a meditation. And the brain IS suspectible (is that a real word? my english fails me) to influences then.
Everything we experience affects us. That’s a fact. There is no “undo” in the brain circuit…
I’m not saying here that computer games are bad. Just that they DO have an effect on everybody.
Computer games give the brain a new way to interpret experiences and thoughts, just like watching movies, travelling to different places and meeting people give brains material to throw at us in our dreams. (and what’s in our dreams, is DEFINITELY there in our subconscious affecting us when we are awake…)
And even though I very rarely play games anymore, I still have “computer game” dreams occasionally. On of the most common is the Ultima-like “exploring the wilderness”-dream. They are often quite interesting, but the isometric top-perspective is just a bit dull I much prefer the dreams which my brains interpret from my personal human point of perspective.
I think video games should be used with some caution. I regret all of the hours that I dumped into games when I was a bit younger, because I have gotten nothing out of that now. I think one of the biggest problems with games is that they give the appearance of learning, of achieving - the more you play, the better you get, which gives you a sense of accomplishment. But what has been accomplished? The majority of games that I got hooked on (and I’ll admit, there are some exceptions) only taught me to switch off. I got better because the more I played, the less I thought about what I was doing, and the more automatic my reactions became. I don’t want to sound like a total bore, but I got into playing chess quite a bit recently - and I found that it was sharpening up my thinking, not just during the game but in RL too. My thinking has become clearer when solving problems, and I’m much better at planning things. I’m not completely anti-video games - I had some great fun playing games, especialy with other people. All I’m saying is that I regret all of those hours sitting trance-like, by myself, in front of a screen, with my brain switched off.
It looks as if you’re expecting something from video games other than plain fun and escapism. Chess is great, and it does train you to approach situations with a more active problem-solving state of mind. However, don’t play video games with the intention of learning anything or bettering your skills at something relative to real life. Play them with the simple intention to have some fun for a few hours.
What is wrong with people who think that everything is useless if it doesn’t somehow improve your physique or mental capacity? When you’re laying there at age 80, about to die, you’ll only wish you had MORE fun back when you were able to. From my point of view, everything you ever did to help yourself is absolutely useless when you’re facing death. Why did you spend all that time learning about obscure nonsense when everyone else was out having fun?
Life is short, pointless and very, very cruel. When you die, that’s it. Your lifetime of problem solving and physical work-outs is all gone, and it never even had any real purpose while you were alive.
If you’re not having fun, then you’re wasting your limited time on this earth.
You’re absolutely right Atheist - having a good time with your life while you still can is damn important. And I had good times playing games, and still do - with, as you say, the simple intention to have some fun for a few hours. What I was lamenting in my previous post was the many more hours when I played games compulsively - because they were an easy option, because I didn’t have to think or interact with anyone else. I just wish now that I’d spent that same precious time having fun in other ways rather than mindlessly escaping.
I used to play a game called Counter-Strike for hours on end of the day. The only harm it did me was how addictive I got to it. It’s basically a game where you kill the other team and you win. I don’t ever have violent dreams and the game hasn’t made me any more violent than before when I never played it so I would say video games do nothing more really than take up time.
L4tEr,
J05h
i think lucid dreams are much more dangerous than computer games… in dreams (lucid ones at least) if you count or sing etc. those exact brain parts get activated, if you just imagine something those brain parts remain inactive. In that regard dreams are very much like real life, as a lot of us have experienced. We know that computer games arent real, but with dreams that is often not the case. So someone who has violent dreams and enjoys them is much more dangerous than someone who only watches things on a screen…
Please… People are just looking for an answer to there problems…
Ive been playing videogames since i was 4. I played games from Mario to GTA, and i have yet to kill someone, steal, rob, beat, main, or injure another person. Now, i do play these things for hours on end, but im not obese. Infact, im quite fit and healthy, i also make straight As. I dont like to fight, not have i fought. So has my friend, he hasent killed or anything like that. And also, where the hell are the parents huh? The parents allow there kids to play this crap, but do not teach them that its wrong. Thats where crap like that happens. When i played, i was told it was wrong to do that, and i never did. And when my brother picked up on them, i told him not to do it. It all depends on many things, but it mainly depends on your parents.
Sorry that its all jumbled up… just a stream of thought.
What really interests me is what makes these ultra-violent video games so gratifying to play? Is it because we would really like to go out and kill everybody that has ever pissed us off?
If so, then it is possible that these games have actually prevented murders by meeting this need vicariously.
I don’t think the problem with videogames is they cause violence, they probably don’t. The problem I have is with people getting obsessed with them. If you do ANYTHING THAT ISN’T PRODUCTIVE, including videogames, too much it’ll affect your psyche.
So go ahead and play videogames (though like I said I think most of them suck nowadays…good old Nintendo) but just don’t waste your entire life doing it.
so if you know what is NOT the meaning of life, then what IS the meaning of life. you can’t answer that question. maybe the meaning of life is to play computer games. it’s like god… can’t prove it, can’t disprove it.
This is way off the topic, but I do know the meaning of (my) life, and that is
To stay alive
To understand the truth about everything possible
To act accordingly
Videogames do little to nothing to perpetuate life and little to nothing to understand the world, so therefore I can safely say that playing computer games is not the meaning of life. Not mine at least.
Your little “you can’t prove or disprove it” thing is pathetic. Why even live if you don’t believe in your own ability to rationalize?
YOU are pathetic if you don’t realize that we always have to rely upon possibilities and probabilities. We can be tricked. Just look at how our dreams can trick us. What if ‘reality’ is just a bigger dream, where it also doesn’t matter whether you are playing computer or whatnot.
YOUR meaning of YOUR life is just an interpretation. One, that of course suits you very well, but that nevertheless is not reliable simply because it is not objective but subjective. YOU want to know things and live and stuff, but that doesn’ necessarily mean that that IS the meaning of even your life.
Besides that I agree that too much time spent in front of a computer playing games could be considered a waste of time, but not because it doesn’t tie in with some bigger meaning of life, but because it SEEMS both boring and egoistic. I do not claim, however, that my opinion is right… It is of course based upon my beliefs and is not objective.
Oh well, I think you know what I mean. There are so many different layers to this question/problem that it is hard to discuss.
If we’re only talking ‘what you see and feel is real’, then of course computer games could be considered a waste of time. but if we were to discuss other layers of this question, then I would have to say, as I’ve already done, that your assumption cannot be proven.
Sorry to be such a fucking smartass. I hope you have a sense of humor and an open mind. I am sure you do.
First off sorry for calling you pathetic. I think you said it best: We have to rely on possiblilities and probabilities. And in all probability, from all the evidence I’ve seen since I was born, the world that I see is real. I mean, you could always say, “oh yeah well you can’t prove it!” But what are we going to do, sit around like a bunch of logs questioning whether we exist or not?
Furthermore, even if our lives IS a part of a bigger dream as you suggested, excessive videogame playing still wouldn’t be a good thing to do. When you try to have a lucid dream, you try to do cool, fun stuff right? Well if life was just a dream, the same thing would apply. And while videogames can be entertaining in moderation, when they become too big a part of someone’s life they greatly detract from the pleasure one can derive from it.
About objectivity and subjectivity: I know my fair share about objectivity. If you look at the situation objectively, you’ll find that in all probability the world DOES exist just as we see it.
Anyways, that’s just how I feel. I’m a big proponent of man’s ability to create his own reality
ooooh, I think I found an existentialist hiding in the above post.
Sometimes I believe that we can make decisions, that we should take responsibilities. Other times I look at the world and it seems as if we were only able to react to it. And not even freely, but just within the frame of our neurophysiological builup. Do you know what I mean? I mean, there are so many things that seem to happen involuntarily to me, that often it is hard to believe that I could freely create anything.
Alber Camus (one of the most famous existentialists of all time) is one of my favorite writers, but I wouldn’t really consider myself an existentialist. I think I’m more of an objectivists.
fabi, if you’ve never read any Ayn Rand books (The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged) I highly suggest it. She writes about this very subject. However, both of those books are fairly long and complex, so if you’re not into reading you may not like it too much…
, we’re dealing with pure evil. Keep distance & watch your back. 
I much prefer the dreams which my brains interpret from my personal human point of perspective.
it’s like god… can’t prove it, can’t disprove it.
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