Your argument is both coldy calculated and elegant.EverythingIncredible said:
Not without giving a proper argument. If you don't explain your reasoning then anything you say is empty words.EverythingIncredible said:
No, the situation is markedly different because when video games are blamed it's an external force corrupting a poor innocent (white, middle-class) soul, and, in addition, is considered unusual. If a member of a minority group commits a crime it's treated as an internal factor and also dismissed as a "well, typical. Must have been a gang member". So, yes, that's pretty racist.Kargathia said:
As a matter of fact, I did, and his reasoning was a stretch at best. How about this alternative theory: Maybe no one's surprised if there's a shooting in a high-crime neighborhood? And maybe we're more surprised when some teenage psychopath guns down half of his classmates for no real reason rather than rival gangs crap or whatever? Sorry, but this is the sort of thing someone writes when he wants to make a headline. Well, good for him, he managed to do that and managed to convince a lot of people that that wasn't exactly what he was doing.evilthecat said:
Tdc2182 said:
It definitely makes it a double standard, and it certainly is racist to jump to the gang member conclusion. But he's saying that it's racist to not have a racist prejudice about middle class white people. And last time I checked "innocent until corrupted" was not a racist prejudice.KirbyKrackle said:
Maybe I'm underestimating the degree of racial segregation in America (although if I am I see no problem in calling your entire country racist, let alone a small section of the media), but why should that mean that shootings by young white people are more likely to be linked to video games, as evidentially they are? Your theory is non sequitur.RDubayoo said:
If you actually read up on the events in question, none of them happened for no reason. In most cases the killers were actually very interested in having their reasons be known. Oslo, as the most recent case, is a particularly glaring example.Imperator_DK said:
... you know, I was going to launch into a big wall of text defending my position, then I realized, "Wait a minute, why is the burden of proof on me?" No, the burden of proof is on you. You're one of the people advancing this theory. YOU prove that shootings by minorities, on a scale equivalent to those seen in VT and elsewhere and for similar motivations, are ignored by the media.evilthecat said:
No, it's pretty simple math.KirbyKrackle said:
Hm, don't like having your made up information attacked, huh? Like I said earlier, I got my statistics, the statistics that back up my claim that almost everyone under the age of 18 plays video games, from Pew. It's a small word though, so maybe you missed it in my earlier post, so once again it's "Pew". P-E-W. Pew pew pew. The Pew Research Center. As opposed to the "TDC's Gut Feeling about What 'Sounds Accurate' Center". You should definitely shoot them an email though, let them know that their study that shows that "Fully 99% of boys and 94% of girls report playing video games" is wrong wrong wrong because it doesn't agree with your imagination.Tdc2182 said:
Er, that's not what Ferguson said though; you've misread his argument in a very crucial way, changing it to focus on the shooter instead of the setting. He actually said, "When shootings happen in an inner city in minority-populated schools, videogames are never brought up. But when these things happen in white majority schools and in the suburbs, people start to freak out and videogames are inevitably blamed. I think that there's a certain element of racism or ignorance here." You see, he's definitely focused on the setting, not the shooter (whereas your apparent understanding of his argument was that he was focusing on the shooter). Now, is Virginia Tech an inner city and minority-populated school? If it is, then a version of your argument rephrased to actually be rebutting Ferguson's argument has somewhat more traction. However, it doesn't seem to be, so I guess it's a bit of a moot point anyway.RDubayoo said:
I guess I just couldn't resist.KirbyKrackle said:
You seem rather happy about the fact that you think you called me out on something, more so than the actual argument itself. No, like I said (seeing how you sure do make a habit out of skimming over things that I've said so far), I ended the argument because it pretty much started out as me asserting point A, you loosey attacking point A because I have yet to explain the rather obvious reasoning behind it, whilst attributing a certain prejudicial term onto me. And then waiting for me to present point B.
Like I've said (seems to be getting a little old now, doesn't it?), my arguments pretty sound. You just really didn't seem to understand it because of your mindset.
When you say "addressed", do you mean that time you made up a false statistic about console ownership in order to try and contradict it? And if you knew I had already said that, why ask me to repeat myself? And then complain because I complied? Curiouser and curiouser.Tdc2182 said:
Really? You took a nation-wide study of over 1000 teens to determine console ownership percentages? Because that was Pews did to determine the percentage of teens who play video games. Still not sure why you're so obsessed with console ownership though, since, while there's an obvious correlation between owning a console (why not include computers, again? Blame my "skimming" but I don't think you've said) and playing a video game, it doesn't actually determine whether you play a video game or not, as the Pew statistics obviously demonstrate. Oh, and it's 94% and 99%. Where are you getting 90% from? Geez, talk about skimming...Tdc2182 said:
Oh, did I quote something you said incorrectly? Kindly indicate where. Also, let's not forget that I've also stated that you make classist remarks as well, not just racist.Tdc2182 said:
More like mind-boggled, really. I've never met someone who thought making up statistics was a legit thing to do. You keep doing it too, so it's pretty great. Also, your argument was completely relying on those made up stats, which is why it's very important to point out that you made up those stats since without those made up stats you have no argument.Tdc2182 said:
It's true; I don't have the mindset of "oh I shall automatically trust these statistics you made up and not question them." You got me. I admit it. Sorry. Mea culpa. It's the cynic in me. Now, try to make your argument without those made up statistics. Please, try to argue that students in inner-city schools don't play video games, in the face of all the evidence (actual evidence, to boot!). Go for it. Show me how sound it is.Tdc2182 said:
That's "cynical" actually. The opposite of naive. And the argument is not about frequency, but the amount of related "freak out" fallout. You've gone off on a bit of a tangent.Tdc2182 said:
Where (outside of your "sounds accurate" gut feeling) are you getting this idea that an inner-city school's students have no access to videogames? Are you saying that all inner-city shootings are made by the 1% of teenaged males who don't play video games? Also, most shooters, regardless of setting, have pretty clear motives, so that argument falls flat too. It's probably a safer bet to try the low casualty factor, but you really need some statistics to back that up; otherwise it's just baseless speculation (it would be interesting if true though).Tdc2182 said:
That was my first thought too.Corporal Yakob said:
I'm defending a person who researches as a profession and who has a PhD and numerous published articles in the relevant field, which you could very easily look up. We live in the era of Google Scholar. This isn't hard to find.RDubayoo said:
His point is not that media reporting is disproportionate, I never said that and he never did either (although the point would seem pretty common sense to make in light of the current climate). His real point, supported by his published work is that the generalized theories of media violence which are produced by researchers and not by the media but which tend to achieve media presence in certain cases a) do not adequately account for racial difference and b) are under-represented (which doesn't even have to mean absent) within discourse on minority crime. The attack on the media for being 'racist' is a peripheral part of an overall point about cherry picking of research in cases of moral panic, which he wrote a whole article on. Not a very good article, but better than nothing.
Firstly, I don't need to be a dick to you, so you can extend the same courtesy.RDubayoo said:
It's a hard truth, and he's expressing it in a deliberately misleading way to sensationalize the point... but it doesn't invalidate the truth that we tend to group the rationalizations for killing sprees based on race. Most particularly, when it's a representative of a majority (such as a white male in America), we shift the blame away from him in some way -- lately, to video games.Andy Chalk said:
