[TrueKaiser]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kochevnik', 'I')f you're going to understand violence, you need to go to the expert, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman literally wrote the text book on killing and violence. 25 years of work in the military on the subject. Grossman is a near genius in my book.

Here is an EXCELLENT summary of current thinking:

http://www.rense.com/general63/train.htm

[Jack]

Interesting post. I suspect that we've become a far more violent society; the article offers an explanation of why.

The after-Peak years will probably be brutal for 50 years or so.

[Itch]

That was a great article, with a very thorough explanation.

A large mass of young adults, who have access to weapons that can kill from great distances, and can do so quite accurately with little actual experience, actually enjoy or are entertained by killing other people. This is some creepy shit. I sure would hate to piss any of them off, even more so in the coming years.

[smiley]

I bet that the ancient Greec wrote similar articles about Homerus' Ilias.

Our cultural expressions have always been very violent. The Ilias, Romeo and Juliet, the old Testament all are sprawned with violence. Even our fairitales are very violent. In Hansel and Gretel the witch is horribly burned to death.

Television is merely a new way to portray the same (violent) message. I have a hard time believing that television could be that much more effective in seeding violence than for instance theater or literature.

My personal view is that the violence is a consequence of our current society.

Humans want fulfillment (what Heidegger calls "Dasein"). Challenges are an integral part of that fullfillment. Yet we live in a society which tries to eradicate all forms of risks. In our pampered, airbag-ed world it is becoming increasingly hard to find challenges.

Therefore people are turning to more extreme measures. Each year more and more more people are travelling to Pamplona to run with the bulls. More people are taking up sports like basejumping etc. There is only one attraction to these kinds of activities and that is associated risk. You are doing something which might kill you.

The quest for challenges takes some across the borders of what is allowed by society. You would expect Winona Ryder to be able to pay her bills, yet she chooses to steal. Paying for a bill when you have 10 million on the bank is not a challenge, stealing is.

I believe crime and violence is just another expression of the desire for fullfillment. It's the sign of a bored society.

[Chocky]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ut even more amazingly, of the thousands of loaded muskets, over half had multiple loads in the barrel

[mindfarkk]

the fact that television portrays it differently cannot be overstated. television and film portrays it VISUALLY as if it were happening in front of us, as through a window.

neuro researchers have found that the brain responds to watching an event happens in a way virtually identical to actually doing it - a series of neurons fire in exactly the same way for both events. there is some belief that this is the biological basis for empathy, and why some of us get so viscerally caught up in, say, sporting events. or ever finding yourself leaning or moving when playing or watching someone play a video game? god knows i have!

this neurological response may well be intrinsically involved in learning, and one implication is that this neurological response may have a LOT to do with a developmental process which is based on modelled behavior. therefore it could conceivably have a VERY powerful effect on developing brains - i.e. adolescents and pre-teens - i.e. actually shaping the hard-wiring of circuits as they are formed and laid down in the brain. They already have evidence that certain brain anatomical regions involved in the limbic system are altered by trauma - that the amygdala and hypothalamus can actually be a different size in people growing up exposed to constant violence.

There are plausible arguments that brain circuitry may be shaped when several neurons fire together on stimulus, forming an association. The neurochemical environment - for instance, high levels of adrenaline - would have a real impact shaping a developing brain. and yes, your brain is not fully formed in adolescence, which is why teens respond emotionally in a different way than older adults. it's not just experience. the executive centers of the frontal lobes, for instance, have not finished developing, therefore it's harder for teens to modulate their emotions, and control their behaviors in response to emotions.

Watching violence on television or in the movies IS SIMPLY NOT THE SAME as reading about it, or hearing it, or even looking at pictures.

i'm not an activist on violent games etc. so don't jump my ass about that. we play PS2 all the time in my house. but to refute the information without looking at the facts is simple denial.

[smiley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')atching violence on television or in the movies IS SIMPLY NOT THE SAME as reading about it, or hearing it, or even looking at pictures.

[born2respawn]

I've never bought the "video games/films/TV makes your violent" argument, it reduces your reaction to the violence, but to say it actually makes you violent seems silly. I can only go on my personal experience here, but I've played a great many computer games, and I have become a walking avatar of death and destruction in those games.

I have strode among the corpses of men who's only crime was to jointhe opposition in search of better meals. I've executed men at range without a second thought about their friends or family, I've ruthlessly pursued objectives without cause or question.

However, I'm not a violent person. There's a clear line between games and reality, people who can't see that line strike me as a little defective.

[Itch]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t's actually quite hard to shoot acurately over 'great distances''. The idea that video games teach kids to shoot accurately is not correct.

[Chocky]

Do you do much shooting, Itch?

[TrueKaiser]

the article is a opinion, it is neither a scientific paper(which is subject to peer review and the scientific process) or a news article.
let me show some of the flaws.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'k')illing is unnatural

[mgibbons19]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('born2respawn', 'I')'ve never bought the "video games/films/TV makes your violent" argument, it reduces your reaction to the violence, but to say it actually makes you violent seems silly. I can only go on my personal experience here, but I've played a great many computer games, and I have become a walking avatar of death and destruction in those games.

I have strode among the corpses of men who's only crime was to jointhe opposition in search of better meals. I've executed men at range without a second thought about their friends or family, I've ruthlessly pursued objectives without cause or question.

However, I'm not a violent person. There's a clear line between games and reality, people who can't see that line strike me as a little defective.

[Njegosh]

yeah,i wondered if battle like Camerone and Thermopylae where really flukes especialy concidering a lot of ancient empires placed a high value on concepts such as honor and steadfastness in combat and that tales of marks on your enemy soldiers backs were nothing more than primitive propaganda, like they deserved to lose, they ran!
also imho the fact that the ACW was mostly fought by conscripts and militias didn't help in maintaining unit mental coherency.
storys of 10 round muskets are quite rare(if existant) in European military history with it's long history of professional soldiering.

[BlisteredWhippet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TrueKaiser', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kochevnik', 'I')f you're going to understand violence, you need to go to the expert, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman literally wrote the text book on killing and violence. 25 years of work in the military on the subject. Grossman is a near genius in my book.

Here is an EXCELLENT summary of current thinking:

http://www.rense.com/general63/train.htm

[bart]

Interesting article. Although I instinctively agree with Grossman about the devastating effects of television and video games, I'm skeptical.

The writing style is pop psychology, with a military twist. It makes complicated phenomena seem as simple as 1-2-3.

So, yes, the piece is fun to read and seems to make intuitive sense, but I would want to do more research on Grossman, before I take his theories seriously. What are his academic credentials? And what sort of instutions is the "Killology Research Group in Jonesboro, Arkansas" that he heads? Killology?

[gg3]

First of all, Grossman cites a number of studies which were published in peer-reviewed journals, and which anyone here can look up if they choose.

His conclusion, and the apparent consensus of those studies, is that television and video games do indeed cause a dramatic increase in violent criminal behavior in societies plural, anywhere these technologies have been introduced.

You can go through those studies and find a number of standard research protocols: matched groups, pre/post, etc. All come to the same conclusion.

As well, it is an obvious inference that the effects upon individuals follow a normal-curve.

Some are not affected significantly, as per Born2Respawn. Some end up becoming violent criminals. Most end up being "merely" desensitized so they display inappropriate emotions such as laughter when they see the violent criminals at work.

Some people can drink alcohol and drive without getting in accidents. Shall we legalize drinking and driving? The laws there are based on the fact that enough drunk drivers get in accidents, that society deserves to be protected from the condition that produces the risk.

Kaiser, you are in denial, and you are as wrong on the facts as anyone who believes the Earth is flat.

Ditto anyone else who's ducking this issue. The facts are as clear as for peak oil.

Smiley's comment about "a bored society" is telling. Extreme boredom is a classic and defining symptom of sociopathy. And there is even a psychoactive compound that will create exactly that effect, so we know for a hard fact that extreme boredom is a neurological state with a neurochemical cause. I have spoken at length with the scientist who discovered that compound, and he is quite aware of its potential for elucidating the biological mechanisms underlying sociopathy, and thereby, the potential for a cure or at least a viable treatment.

Re. the arguements about explicit violence in the live theatre: Find me one community anywhere, where the average person in that community watches 27 hours per week of live theatre (i.e. as much as the average person watches TV). In fact find me a community anywhere in America where the average person sees even one live play per week! There aren't any. Case closed.

Re. Goodman's military background: Another point he should have gone into in more detail is the fact that military and police training emphasizes strict limits on killing, in conjunction with specific sets of legal conditions including lawful orders from one's commanding officer. Those points are drilled into soldiers' (and presumably police officers') heads until they can repeat them in their sleep. The result being that the learned ability to kill is locked down tight under a set of precautions and safety mechanisms.

Re. what to do about violent television and video games:

Outlaw them. Same legal mechanisms and penalties as are applied to child pornography.

Child porn is not free speech. Child porn is criminalized because the process of making it involves the molestation of children, and because it feeds the fantasies of a small number of people who in turn are incited to molest children.

Note that the most significant harm caused by molestation is not to the child's sexual organs, but to the child's brain: by way of traumatic experiences that harm the child's ability to develop healthy interpersonal attachments and later, romantic and sexual attachments.

Violent television and video games also damage a child's brain by way of harming the ability to develop healthy interpersonal attachments. The prevalence of inappropriate affect: laughing when viewing violence: is conclusive.

However, even animated child porn, created wholly on computers with no actual children being hurt, is illegal. If you were to show child porn films to a large population, not everyone would be incited to go out and molest real children; but a small number would, and the consequences are so severe that we outlaw even the animated versions.

A molested child is still alive and has at least a hope of healing. A murdered child is dead, and dead is permanent, with no hope of healing.

We outlaw the actual and the animated fictional versions of child porn, because we don't want to incite latent child molestation. A civilized society will not allow so many more children to be molested and grow up damaged. Therefore it is necessarily the case that we must do likewise for the animated versions of murder and mayhem in order to prevent so many more children -or adults for that matter- from getting murdered and never growing up or getting another day older.

===

As far as the application of all this to post-PO scenarios:

We now have a society in which all except its oldest living generations were raised with television, and are therefore susceptible to those kinds of influences when under stress. This should figure in scenario planning.

There is a clear and obvious difference between criminal violence and self-defense. While it may be true that fear of crime begets an armed citizenry, in which it becomes easier for criminals to get access to arms, and thereby escalate the spiral of fear further, the fact is that this is where we are today. Pure pacifism does not last long in the gene pool; one must at least be prepared to defend oneself in the event that the lawful order breaks down.

The keys to the acceptable use of force by civilized people for purely defensive purposes, are a) relentless training, and b) ironclad rules about chain of command and lawful uses of force. We should hope that our system of civiilian law and justice can be maintained in the coming crises, and we should be thankful if we live in places where it continues to operate. But if it starts to break, our first task after food and water, is restoring it. Otherwise the road to back the caves, and a life that is "nasty, brutish, and short," is shorter than any of us might imagine.

[RIPSmithianEconomics]

I've never physically hurt anyone, and I hope I never have to, but I've killed lots of animals and the you do get used to it. I'm sure there has to be some sense of getting used to it because of video games, but I'm not sure whether that would make you hurt anyone. But if you did, say in the military, I think you may not feel the same reticence about it. After all, most American soldiers in WWII apparently didn't shoot to kill. It's amazing, but a 1940's study revealed it.

[Ercole]

I wonder how many hutus have played with their PS2 or watched nôty movies from Holly Wood before killing tutsis, hem... sorry... before cuting tutsis in pieces...

[bart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'F')irst of all, Grossman cites a number of studies which were published in peer-reviewed journals, and which anyone here can look up if they choose.

[BlisteredWhippet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TrueKaiser', 't')he article is a opinion, it is neither a scientific paper(which is subject to peer review and the scientific process) or a news article.
let me show some of the flaws.