baldeagle wrote:You can't be serious. We use flight simulators to teach people how to fly. We test and qualify pilots in them annually. We use video simulations to train soldiers how to engage the enemy tactically. Yet you think there is ZERO correlation between that and video games? You think that has no impact on a person's mind or how they might behave in the real world?OldCannon wrote:No they don't. This is a dangerous connection you're claiming. Grand Theft Auto doesn't teach you to drive, Call of Duty doesn't teach you to shoot a gun, IL-2 Sturmovik doesn't teach you to fly fighter planes, and Angry Birds doesn't do a darned thing to teach you about slingshots.Excaliber wrote: I would agree that healthy minds can make the distinction between violent fantasy and reality pretty easily. Unfortunately, unhealthy minds don't see to do this as well, and the tactics and reflexes learned in the games do have applicability in the real world.
Grand Theft Auto might not teach you how to drive safely and responsibly but it can certainly influence someone's decision to steal a car "for the fun of it" and endanger many people. Your argument that we should use caution when assigning blame is valid, but to claim they have no impact at all is counter to the evidence we already have as well as general experience.
There is nothing that a human can do, if taken to an extreme, that will not influence future thoughts and decisions. Every interaction we have with the world, be it with people or things, subtly influences our future in ways that are very difficult to predict. For some the influence is very minor. For others it is profound. When taken to the extreme it can be life altering.
Over 20 million copies of this game were sold. Did we see a spike in mass murder that correlates to the release of this game?
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