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Jan 12, 2011

Comments

1.

Oh dear, I was totally waiting for this.

My response was going to be 'but doesn't everyone play videogames by now?' along with my requisite 'we were finding inspiration to kill each other long before books/tv/videogames'!

But this? MUDs? Has thrown me for a loop.

2.

Jon Stewart's take on 'effects':
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/01/11/jon-stewarts-moving-monologue-on-the-tucson-shootings/

'wouldn't it be nice to be able to draw a straight line of causation?'

3.

>what insidious mind-altering snippet of code did you hide in MUD1 that has spread across the gaming industry and caused all these murders? Come clean, you rogue hacker!

I put in the notion that people could be and become who they really are, rather than who everyone around them wants them to be.

This is generally a good thing, even for those who, through playing virtual worlds, discover their inner jerk. Could it cause someone with mental health issues to go out and shoot up a shopping mall? Well, who knows when it comes to mental health, but I suspect that it's far more likely to prevent someone from doing it than it is likely to cause them to do it.

If you really don't want people to shoot people, a good place to start is not letting them have guns.

Richard

4.

It gets better. The ominous first sentence in a Washington Post article referring to Loughner's 'descent into fantasy' is:

"He played late-night marathon games of Monopoly with his buddies."

He's not the Mud Maniac, he's the Monopoly Maniac.

5.

Why? Straight line of causation...ask a forensic psychiatrist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8rMYyegT5Y

0:15

6.

Ted>"He played late-night marathon games of Monopoly with his buddies."

Well I can see how late-night marathon games of Monopoly could derail anyone...

Richard

7.

I think we should all be very grateful for the fact that the people, who would raise this as a possible cause, don't play or know anything about MUDs. Imagine if he was a vivid Achaea player, cheerfully farming "pretty, little girls" for XP and sacrificing their dead bodies to the deity of his liking. Or, perhaps, a veteran Armageddon player, who spends most of his time beating up PC slaves and subordinates. We don't even need to touch on the possibilities of playing a rapist alien robot with several sets of genitalia in something like Shangrila (these guys seem to really like the notion of "becoming who you really are", Richard :P).

If FOX could raise hell over the barely erotic scene in Mass Effect, this is the kind of material you could use to achieve anything.

8.

Yes Sir ^, you totally right. If FOX do it I'll be a happiest man on the world ;)

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