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I would also echo this as well. I play quite a few violent video games, but not all. I do not necessarily seek out a video game because it is violent, but there

I would also echo this as well. I play quite a few violent video games, but not all. I do not necessarily seek out a video game because it is violent, but there are mechanics that I enjoy more than others. I like shooter games (Halo, COD) more than I enjoy fighting games (Mortal Kombat, Soulcalibur). Does that indicate that I have a violent desire is to go out and shoot people? Absolutely not.

chiefalchemist 6y ago
> Does that indicate that I have a violent desire is to go out and shoot people? Absolutely not. Perhaps. But does it mean you're more tolerant of violence? And that others such as yourself eventually aggregate to have a collective impact on the broader culture? And what about 10 or 20 years from now, will your non-desire to shoot people still not exist? Neuro-plasticity effectively dictatess we are what we consume, we are what we do. I'm not disputing your self-diagnosis. But there is science that does.
- tomnipotent 6y ago
  > Perhaps No, which is the entire premise of the linked article we're discussing. > And what about 10 or 20 years from now, will your non-desire to shoot people still not exist? Perhaps, but it will have considerably less to do with video games than other life factors. > Neuro-plasticity effectively dictatess we are what we consume, we are what we do This isn't what neuro-plasticity means. It means your brain can perform a task with less work, not that you "become" something because the pathways are optimized for a task.
  - chiefalchemist 6y ago
    Neuro-plasticity means what it says: the brain is moldable. It's not static. It's not set in stone. Prior to neuro-plasticity the brain was perceived as being set in stone, so to speak. The brain is a result of how you "exercise" it, or not. It's the result of what you feed it, or not. It's not static. Neuro-plasticity enables stroke victims to recover. And the depth and breadth of that recovery is a function of how much or not the brain is forced to rewire.
    - tomnipotent 6y ago
      I think we're agreed on the definition of neuroplasticity, just not that it defines you somehow. It's like saying "you are what you eat", which is mostly nonsensical. Exercising your brain causes structural changes, whereby neuronal circuity is "rewired" to create more optimal paths. Stroke victim recovery is functional, in which parts of the brain take over responsibilities for what was damaged (but it's not "transferred", you still need to learn it all over again). Neither, however, somehow magically define you as a person just because your brain decided some optimizations would help with repetitive tasks or worst-case decided cortical remapping was necessary to recover from injury.
      - chiefalchemist 6y ago
        Right. What you do - stroke or no stroke - becomes paths in the brain. Habits are simply more well established paths. What you do today influeces what you'll do tomorrow. And so on. That is, what you "feed" your brain will manifest itself physically as paths in the brain. Full stop. When you develop a habit of consuming violece - and enjoying it - those paths are real. Pretending they don't exist doesn't make them magically disappear. Confirmation bias works that way, the science does not. Furthermore, human behavior is often learned for the collective. That is, for example, given a group of cigarette smokers, the more who quit smoking, the more likely others in the group are likely to quit. Put another way, going in the other direction, humans naturally gravitate to broader norms. That is, the more I see others with excessive weight, the more likely others will join that club. So yes actually, you are what you eat. Literally. Now please explain - not being snatky - how that's nonsensical.
        tomnipotent 6y ago
        > When you develop a habit of consuming violece - and enjoying it - those paths are real. Except that's exactly what is up for discussion, and so far there is no evidence that this is the case. There's a big difference between muscle memory, neuroplasticity, and playing the piano than their is for sitting on the couch and consuming violent media. > Pretending they don't exist doesn't make them magically disappear. Saying they exist doesn't make them magically appear. > Furthermore, human behavior is often learned for the collective Yes, that's also how morals work. The more people are exposed to something, the more morally acceptable it becomes. > Now please explain - not being snatky - how that's nonsensical. Short witticisms like "you are what you eat" or "you are what you learn" are shallow and vastly underestimate the subjects at hand in exchange for a quick nod. Such as "we are greater than the sum of our parts".
- feoren 6y ago
  Why are we still using half-baked "doesn't it seem like" type arguments in the comments of a ten year study showing everything you just said is bullshit?
- vlunkr 6y ago
  We've seen similar concerns about slasher movies, rap music, and even video games, which have been around and been violent for more than 20 years. To my knowledge none of those concerns have ever amounted to anything.
  - chiefalchemist 6y ago
    Has any _one_ of those things been proven to be dangerous? Not really. Has the collective impact of multiple violences been studied? Put another way: Will a mouthful of soda do you in? Not really. But multiply that exposure to sugar across different drinks and processed foods multiple times per day and before you know there's an obesity crisis. But the mouthful of soda is proven to be safe. We are what we consume - physically, emotionally, intellectually, and so on. That's been confirmed time and again as well.
    - esperent 6y ago
      In the absence of studies, you could look at different cultures to see whether this holds up. For example, in most European countries, levels of violence are very low, and the likelihood/desire for an average person to own a weapon is also low (aside from hunters/the Swiss). Compare this to the US where violence is comparatively more common and gun ownership is high. Do Europeans consume large amounts of violent media? As a European, I can tell you the answer is yes. I don't know how much compared to the US, but I basically grew up on violent video games and I have a large number of friends who love horror films that depict far, far worse than anything in a game I ever played. I suspect the media we consume is pretty similar to the media in the US. And yet, less violence. So, an obvious hypothesis is that the tendency to enact violence comes from elsewhere in culture than media. The best suggestion I've come across is from Pinker's History of Violence book. He suggests that levels of violence correlate with an "honor culture" - as in, godfather style "you disrespected my mother now I gotta kill your brother", to varying degrees. In the US, especially ex-confederate states, an honor culture still persists, while in Europe and northern US states we have progessed to a "law and order" culture with correspondingly lower levels of violence. If you're interested in this topic, I highly recommend reading the book. It gives a much better description of this topic than I can here, and once you've spent some time thinking about it, hopefully, you'll come to recognize that blaming media for violence is shallow thinking. Communities and culture cause violence, or prevent it. Media is just fantasy.

chiefalchemist 6y ago

> Does that indicate that I have a violent desire is to go out and shoot people? Absolutely not. Perhaps. But does it mean you're more tolerant of violence? And that others such as yourself eventually aggregate to have a collective impact on the broader culture? And what about 10 or 20 years from now, will your non-desire to shoot people still not exist? Neuro-plasticity effectively dictatess we are what we consume, we are what we do. I'm not disputing your self-diagnosis. But there is science that does.

tomnipotent 6y ago
> Perhaps No, which is the entire premise of the linked article we're discussing. > And what about 10 or 20 years from now, will your non-desire to shoot people still not exist? Perhaps, but it will have considerably less to do with video games than other life factors. > Neuro-plasticity effectively dictatess we are what we consume, we are what we do This isn't what neuro-plasticity means. It means your brain can perform a task with less work, not that you "become" something because the pathways are optimized for a task.
- chiefalchemist 6y ago
  Neuro-plasticity means what it says: the brain is moldable. It's not static. It's not set in stone. Prior to neuro-plasticity the brain was perceived as being set in stone, so to speak. The brain is a result of how you "exercise" it, or not. It's the result of what you feed it, or not. It's not static. Neuro-plasticity enables stroke victims to recover. And the depth and breadth of that recovery is a function of how much or not the brain is forced to rewire.
  - tomnipotent 6y ago
    I think we're agreed on the definition of neuroplasticity, just not that it defines you somehow. It's like saying "you are what you eat", which is mostly nonsensical. Exercising your brain causes structural changes, whereby neuronal circuity is "rewired" to create more optimal paths. Stroke victim recovery is functional, in which parts of the brain take over responsibilities for what was damaged (but it's not "transferred", you still need to learn it all over again). Neither, however, somehow magically define you as a person just because your brain decided some optimizations would help with repetitive tasks or worst-case decided cortical remapping was necessary to recover from injury.
    - chiefalchemist 6y ago
      Right. What you do - stroke or no stroke - becomes paths in the brain. Habits are simply more well established paths. What you do today influeces what you'll do tomorrow. And so on. That is, what you "feed" your brain will manifest itself physically as paths in the brain. Full stop. When you develop a habit of consuming violece - and enjoying it - those paths are real. Pretending they don't exist doesn't make them magically disappear. Confirmation bias works that way, the science does not. Furthermore, human behavior is often learned for the collective. That is, for example, given a group of cigarette smokers, the more who quit smoking, the more likely others in the group are likely to quit. Put another way, going in the other direction, humans naturally gravitate to broader norms. That is, the more I see others with excessive weight, the more likely others will join that club. So yes actually, you are what you eat. Literally. Now please explain - not being snatky - how that's nonsensical.
      - tomnipotent 6y ago
        > When you develop a habit of consuming violece - and enjoying it - those paths are real. Except that's exactly what is up for discussion, and so far there is no evidence that this is the case. There's a big difference between muscle memory, neuroplasticity, and playing the piano than their is for sitting on the couch and consuming violent media. > Pretending they don't exist doesn't make them magically disappear. Saying they exist doesn't make them magically appear. > Furthermore, human behavior is often learned for the collective Yes, that's also how morals work. The more people are exposed to something, the more morally acceptable it becomes. > Now please explain - not being snatky - how that's nonsensical. Short witticisms like "you are what you eat" or "you are what you learn" are shallow and vastly underestimate the subjects at hand in exchange for a quick nod. Such as "we are greater than the sum of our parts".
feoren 6y ago
Why are we still using half-baked "doesn't it seem like" type arguments in the comments of a ten year study showing everything you just said is bullshit?
vlunkr 6y ago
We've seen similar concerns about slasher movies, rap music, and even video games, which have been around and been violent for more than 20 years. To my knowledge none of those concerns have ever amounted to anything.
- chiefalchemist 6y ago
  Has any _one_ of those things been proven to be dangerous? Not really. Has the collective impact of multiple violences been studied? Put another way: Will a mouthful of soda do you in? Not really. But multiply that exposure to sugar across different drinks and processed foods multiple times per day and before you know there's an obesity crisis. But the mouthful of soda is proven to be safe. We are what we consume - physically, emotionally, intellectually, and so on. That's been confirmed time and again as well.
  - esperent 6y ago
    In the absence of studies, you could look at different cultures to see whether this holds up. For example, in most European countries, levels of violence are very low, and the likelihood/desire for an average person to own a weapon is also low (aside from hunters/the Swiss). Compare this to the US where violence is comparatively more common and gun ownership is high. Do Europeans consume large amounts of violent media? As a European, I can tell you the answer is yes. I don't know how much compared to the US, but I basically grew up on violent video games and I have a large number of friends who love horror films that depict far, far worse than anything in a game I ever played. I suspect the media we consume is pretty similar to the media in the US. And yet, less violence. So, an obvious hypothesis is that the tendency to enact violence comes from elsewhere in culture than media. The best suggestion I've come across is from Pinker's History of Violence book. He suggests that levels of violence correlate with an "honor culture" - as in, godfather style "you disrespected my mother now I gotta kill your brother", to varying degrees. In the US, especially ex-confederate states, an honor culture still persists, while in Europe and northern US states we have progessed to a "law and order" culture with correspondingly lower levels of violence. If you're interested in this topic, I highly recommend reading the book. It gives a much better description of this topic than I can here, and once you've spent some time thinking about it, hopefully, you'll come to recognize that blaming media for violence is shallow thinking. Communities and culture cause violence, or prevent it. Media is just fantasy.