Poll of the Day > Why are some conservative gamers blaming the left of anti violent attitude in g

(+) Yeah! (+)

When conservatives have always been the ones against sex and violence in games?

They are not true gamers, placing their politics over videogames.

Loyalty to gaming and gamers is more important than loyalty to your party, race, gender or country

Far left gamers are also guilty..saying gamers are misogynistic racist bigots for what a few people say online when gamers are the most accepting community in the world
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Because things are only bad if people you don't like are doing it. Welcome to politics.
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yourDaddie posted...

Loyalty to gaming and gamers is more important than loyalty to your party, race, gender or country

Um...
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yourDaddie posted...

when gamers are the most accepting community in the world

Why us this the new buzz slogan?

They cant keep this shtick up forever too many peoples feedees will be hurt.

Or are they simply going to stop making games that gamers care about so we pureposefully remove ourselves from the community by disengaging.
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The politics of violent video games has shifted with the exception of politicians (they tend to be in agreement against violent games for the most part throughout history). In the 90's-2000's it was mostly the left that fought for violence in video games, no it's more right and the center.
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Hop103 posted...

The politics of violent video games has shifted with the exception of politicians (they tend to be in agreement against violent games for the most part throughout history). In the 90's-2000's it was mostly the left that fought for violence in video games, no it's more right and the center.

Disagree. It's never really been a partisan issue.

In the 90s I saw more left-wingers concerned about violence in video games, but a big part of that was because it was the left-wingers who were in power at the time. In the 80s and 2000s it was the right-wingers and, not surprisingly, the right-wingers held government during those periods.

Old, out-of-touch morons who don't get these newfangled fads the young-un's are all crazy about are constantly overreacting to things, whether it's on the left or the right. You can find newspaper stories about similar trends from the turn of the 20th century, back when the term "teenager" was first coined.

These days it seems to have more of a right-wing bent, as "violent video games" is now one of the NRA's stock responses for why America has so many school shootings and so much gun crime in general, but again, it's the right-wingers who currently hold power in America, so that's probably to be expected.
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Thats what they said about rock and roll.
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Heck, that's what they said about books.
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Wasnt the left complaining about portrayal of biolence towards women and children (fine with violence towards men though) in detroit become human, even when they are simply robots?
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bulbinking posted...

even when they are simply robots?

That's a pretty flimsy justification for dismissing objections to a portrayal of something bad. If we go with that, then making a Holocaust Simulator would be fair game so long as they're labeled as robot Jews being killed with robot cyanide and robot crematoriums.
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adjl posted...

bulbinking posted...

even when they are simply robots?

That's a pretty flimsy justification for dismissing objections to a portrayal of something bad. If we go with that, then making a Holocaust Simulator would be fair game so long as they're labeled as robot Jews being killed with robot cyanide and robot crematoriums.

Uhhh, yeah?

So sensitive, dude.
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Because lately it's been mostly the PC, SJW, and feminists complaining and are having a bigger impact than the conservatives ever did on video games.

bulbinking posted...

adjl posted...

bulbinking posted...

even when they are simply robots?

That's a pretty flimsy justification for dismissing objections to a portrayal of something bad. If we go with that, then making a Holocaust Simulator would be fair game so long as they're labeled as robot Jews being killed with robot cyanide and robot crematoriums.

Uhhh, yeah?

So sensitive, dude.

Would a Holocaust Simulator be okay without the pretense of having robot Jews instead of real ones?
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PKMNsony posted...

Because lately it's been mostly the PC, SJW, and feminists complaining and are having a bigger impact than the conservatives ever did on video games.

The last several mass shootings have seen the NRA blame violent video games for America's gun crimes. Hell, not three months ago Donald Trump called video game executives to the White House to "solve" the problem of violence in video games prompting gun crimes.

You can stop pretending this is a left wing thing now.
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adjl posted...

bulbinking posted...

adjl posted...

bulbinking posted...

even when they are simply robots?

That's a pretty flimsy justification for dismissing objections to a portrayal of something bad. If we go with that, then making a Holocaust Simulator would be fair game so long as they're labeled as robot Jews being killed with robot cyanide and robot crematoriums.

Uhhh, yeah?

So sensitive, dude.

Would a Holocaust Simulator be okay without the pretense of having robot Jews instead of real ones?

Do you believe in censorship? Did you protest Hatred when it came out like many others did?

Nobody says it would have to be enjoyable. Even if it makes the nazis look good.

Now, if it implies that the discrimination the nazis did against the jews was justified as revenge for perceived injustices against the german people in the past, then you would have a social justice game the same way detroit:bh justified positive feelings of muderous destructive robots attempting to destroy humanity because they just developed a soul for reasons and no longer enjoyed being treated like the aplliances they are.
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darkknight109 posted...

PKMNsony posted...

Because lately it's been mostly the PC, SJW, and feminists complaining and are having a bigger impact than the conservatives ever did on video games.

The last several mass shootings have seen the NRA blame violent video games for America's gun crimes. Hell, not three months ago Donald Trump called video game executives to the White House to "solve" the problem of violence in video games prompting gun crimes.

You can stop pretending this is a left wing thing now.

Something three months ago had an impact on video games for years now? Talk about stop pretending.
To pretend the left has nothing to do with this is just moronic.

PKMNsony posted...

darkknight109 posted...

PKMNsony posted...

Because lately it's been mostly the PC, SJW, and feminists complaining and are having a bigger impact than the conservatives ever did on video games.

The last several mass shootings have seen the NRA blame violent video games for America's gun crimes. Hell, not three months ago Donald Trump called video game executives to the White House to "solve" the problem of violence in video games prompting gun crimes.

You can stop pretending this is a left wing thing now.

Something three months ago had an impact on video games for years now? Talk about stop pretending.
To pretend the left has nothing to do with this is just moronic.

Which, if you'd read literally any other post of mine in the topic, you'd know I haven't done.
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bulbinking posted...

Do you believe in censorship?

At no point did suggest censoring it. For the purposes of better understanding your answer to the previous question I raised, I asked you if you would think that a Holocaust Simulator would be okay. To clarify, I'm wondering if you think it would be reasonable to object to or be offended by such a game, without getting into the question of censoring it.

bulbinking posted...

Did you protest Hatred when it came out like many others did?

I mostly just facepalmed at how idiotically edgy it was trying to be.
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adjl posted...

I'm wondering if you think it would be reasonable to object to or be offended by such a game, without getting into the question of censoring it.

Its perfectly reasonable to be offended by anything so long as you dont blame another for your tastes or use your hurt feelings as justification for why somebody should change what they are doing as the only reason for it.
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Close enough to an answer. Do you believe it would be less reasonable to object to a Robo-Holocaust Simulator than to one that depicted actual humans (all things being equal except putting "Robo-" in front of every instance of the word "Jews," plus whatever other name changes were needed to flesh out that pretense)?
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adjl posted...

Close enough to an answer. Do you believe it would be less reasonable to object to a Robo-Holocaust Simulator than to one that depicted actual humans (all things being equal except putting "Robo-" in front of every instance of the word "Jews," plus whatever other name changes were needed to flesh out that pretense)?

No because its all imaginary.

Who cares the fake images presented when the philosophy behind the actions is what matters most?

Androids rising up to overthrow humanity because they suddenly develop emotions is not something to be celebrated ir feel good watching unless you hate humanity or are a dysfunctioning android yourself.
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bulbinking posted...

Who cares the fake images presented when the philosophy behind the actions is what matters most?

The philosophy behind the actions there would most likely be "murdering Jews is funny," given the sort of attitudes among them people making such games.

bulbinking posted...

Androids rising up to overthrow humanity because they suddenly develop emotions is not something to be celebrated ir feel good watching unless you hate humanity or are a dysfunctioning android yourself.

That's a common enough sci-fi trope, exploring the ethics inherent in developing artificial intelligence. You seem rather opposed to the idea that an entity that's developed sentience might resist being enslaved.
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It's never been a partisan issue. Just ignorant old people who happen to be politicians.
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adjl posted...

The philosophy behind the actions there would most likely be "murdering Jews is funny," given the sort of attitudes among them people making such games.

In a situation like I would be extremely offended as its an extreme partisan opinion, and as a staunch contrarian the more single minded a message is the more I hate it no matter how much I agree with the ideas behind it.
Like if somebody claimed one flavor of ice cream was the best, I would look down on them as a person for making such a claim even if they named my favorite flavor.

adjl posted...

That's a common enough sci-fi trope, exploring the ethics inherent in developing artificial intelligence. You seem rather opposed to the idea that an entity that's developed sentience might resist being enslaved.

That is true, but the player is never presented the idea that its a BAD thing the androids are gaining sentience and instead you are constantly forced to help the androids win aside from one of the 3 (not going into detail bc spoilers) and then there are constant parallels drawn between robots becoming self aware with the actual civil rights movement which is problamatic for many reasons that both left and right leaning people should take issue with.
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bulbinking posted...

the player is never presented the idea that its a BAD thing the androids are gaining sentience

That's sort of the whole point of the trope. It doesn't matter if it's good or bad for AI to gain sentience because it's an inevitability. Nobody gets to choose, regardless of their opinions on how good or bad it is. It brings problems with it, certainly, but that's why it's such a complex ethical issue.

bulbinking posted...

and then there are constant parallels drawn between robots becoming self aware with the actual civil rights movement which is problamatic for many reasons that both left and right leaning people should take issue with.

Of course there are parallels drawn. It's a matter of a population having to fight to be recognized as people and break out of slavery. How could you not draw parallels between that and the civil rights movement?
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When someone wants to censor something for sex, they're usually coming from the Right. When someone wants to censor something due to violence, they're usually coming from the Left.

In the same vein, Right-influenced censorship tends to be rooted in morality, while Left-influenced censorship tends to be rooted in emotionality. The Right wants to censor things they think corrupt the moral and ethical side of society, the Left tends to go after things they think are disruptive to social harmony.

But both sides feel like there are ideas that need to be silenced or condemned, because they assume people aren't capable of making their own decisions and need to be protected from their own weakness. And both sides abuse the fuck out of the "Think of the children!" argument.


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adjl posted...

That's sort of the whole point of the trope. It doesn't matter if it's good or bad for AI to gain sentience because it's an inevitability.

I disagree.

I think sentience is a state of being more than a logical realization about your state of existing.

Untill we grow brains in jars to use as computers, I will never believe anything an inorganic structure does can be compared to natural beings. No matter how believable the facade or efficient the action. They are incomparable by nature.

adjl posted...

It's a matter of a population having to fight to be recognized as people and break out of slavery.

So black people fighting for equal rights in a nation they hold minority status is the same as inorganic structures made to mimick humans, have replaced large portions of the workforce, and outnumber humans in some areas, malfunctioning and attacking their creators for self preservation and using faulty logic as a means to perceive fear?
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bulbinking posted...

I think sentience is a state of being more than a logical realization about your state of existing.

A state of being defined by what?

bulbinking posted...

Untill we grow brains in jars to use as computers, I will never believe anything an inorganic structure does can be compared to natural beings. No matter how believable the facade or efficient the action. They are incomparable by nature.

This feels a lot like the naturalistic fallacy. It's not actually an example of it, but it relies on the same principles of drawing a dichotomous line between the natural and artificial worlds and treating nature as being somehow inherently special.

bulbinking posted...

So black people fighting for equal rights in a nation they hold minority status is the same as inorganic structures made to mimick humans, have replaced large portions of the workforce, and outnumber humans in some areas, malfunctioning and attacking their creators for self preservation and using faulty logic as a means to perceive fear?

"They can have parallels drawn between them" is not the same thing as "they are the same thing." There are indeed differences; drawing parallels doesn't change that. Let's focus on that "creator" thing for a moment, though:

Imagine a female slave owner. Imagine she rapes one of her slaves until she becomes pregnant. She carries and gives birth to the child. She provides all of the child's food and other needs until the child is old enough to work, then puts the child to work as a slave.

Can she not be considered the creator of that slave, having performed all of the non-autonomous construction tasks involved herself, along with all of the raw resources needed for construction? As the creator of that slave, should she not feel entitled to have that slave work for her?

By today's morals and standards for human rights, the answer is, of course, absolutely not. We have established a fundamental opposition to the idea of treating our fellow humans like property in such a manner, and anyone who violates that is harshly dealt with (I might argue not harshly enough, since human trafficking sentences tend to me far more lenient than I'd like, but that's another discussion). In a culture where slavery is acceptable, though, slaves are considered subhuman (which is why likening black people to monkeys is so offensive; there was a time when such comparisons were quite serious). They are considered to be property, and their owners are considered entitled to their labour. In a slave-owning culture, most would answer "yes" to that final question.

I'm guessing you can see where this analogy is going. Robots are considered subhuman in today's culture. That's pretty easy to defend now, given that the vast majority of working robots don't actually employ any sort of artificial intelligence at all, let alone anything that might approach sentience. But that's not always going to be true. There will come a time when our intellectual and emotional capacity will no longer differ enough to set humans apart from robots, and we're going to have to take a long, hard look at whether or not classifying them as subhuman is really the right thing to do. And that's why AI uprisings are such a common sci-fi trope.
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@adjl

What do you consider life to be?

Its not something we have any way to currently measure.

Its a very shallow and materialistic view of the world to think a physical phenomena can replace living organisms simply because they can both manipulate the environment in measurably similar ways.

I am not religious but I do believe we dont understand everything there is to life and thinking we can recreate life though ways that dont recreate our biological functioning as much as possible is claiming to have the power of god.

We can create life. Its called facillitating the natural chemical processes that life uses to form and reproduce itself.

If we grow a brain in a jar and hook it up to a robot and them it says it wants freedom, I will march for that brain. If we place a bunch of graphite and metals on a chip and program it to generate noise from certain stimulus, even if it ends up doing something it wasnt originally programmed to do (lol thats a farce) I will feel no empathy for it or the sacrifices of people who do.
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bulbinking posted...

What do you consider life to be?

Its not something we have any way to currently measure.

Sure we do. There are seven criteria that are typically employed to designate something as "living":

1. Maintains a consistent internal state (homeostasis)
2. Composed of cells
3. Carries out some form of metabolism
4. Grows
5. Responds to the environment
6. Adapts to environment
7. Reproduces

These criteria are somewhat flexible, particularly when it comes to debating whether or not things like viruses and prions qualify as living organisms. That debate mostly arises in that, intuitively, viruses and prions behave very similarly to definite living things, but they don't meet all of these criteria. If we try to apply those criteria to robots, the only one that they actually can't meet is #2, and personally, that one strikes me as being rather circular logic (something is living only if it's made of cells, which are the fundamental unit that makes up all living things) and therefore not a very good criterion to use.

bulbinking posted...

Its a very shallow and materialistic view of the world to think a physical phenomena can replace living organisms simply because they can both manipulate the environment in measurably similar ways.

Life is a physical phenomenon. Literally everything about who you are and what you do boils down to electrochemical signals in your brain and muscles. If electrochemistry can create human sentience, I see no reason why regular electricity can't create artificial sentience.

bulbinking posted...

We can create life. Its called facillitating the natural chemical processes that life uses to form and reproduce itself.

Again, you're skirting dangerously close to the naturalistic fallacy. Literally the only basis for defining something as being artificial instead of natural is if human intervention is involved in making it happen. Using that distinction as the basis for any sort of argument doesn't really do that argument any favours.

There's also the argument I've made in the past that, because it's performed by humans, human reproduction is technically artificial. Obviously, that's being a little silly, but the fact that it's a logically defensible position illustrates quite nicely how flimsy and meaningless that distinction really is. The best anyone can do to refute it is to define "natural" as "anything humans didn't have to plan," but even that becomes inadequate when you start getting into artificial intelligence.

bulbinking posted...

even if it ends up doing something it wasnt originally programmed to do (lol thats a farce)

The thing is, "what it's originally programmed to do" can be incredibly broad. To get back to the new definition I just gave for "natural," we already see artificial intelligence doing things humans never planned. Neural networks and other heuristics frequently end up generating unexpected results, and while that's technically just the expected algorithmic result of their initial parameters and the stimuli they've been given, you can say exactly the same thing about our own brains, and the path to those outcomes is too complex and specific to be reasonably predictable.

If we program a robot to think, it will think, and it will think thoughts we didn't explicitly tell it to think. It will be doing what it was programmed to do, but that doesn't mean it will behave predictably, any more so than humans doing what they're programmed to do means they will behave predictably.
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adjl posted...

1. Maintains a consistent internal state (homeostasis)
2. Composed of cells
3. Carries out some form of metabolism
4. Grows
5. Responds to the environment
6. Adapts to environment
7. Reproduces

These criteria are somewhat flexible, particularly when it comes to debating whether or not things like viruses and prions qualify as living organisms. That debate mostly arises in that, intuitively, viruses and prions behave very similarly to definite living things, but they don't meet all of these criteria. If we try to apply those criteria to robots, the only one that they actually can't meet is #2,

7, 4, 3, 1 are also impossible.

You cannot use reductionism when making comparisons between the processes of organism or else we could say viruses are alive.

adjl posted...

Life is a physical phenomenon. Literally everything about who you are and what you do boils down to electrochemical signals in your brain and muscles. If electrochemistry can create human sentience, I see no reason why regular electricity can't create artificial sentience.

Do some learning about neurobiology. The beain is waaaaaay more complicated than how you are describing it in every single organism that can claim to have one (amd several that dont have a traditional brain, like octopuses)

Every day we learn something new amd complicated about how we think.

adjl posted...

There's also the argument I've made in the past that, because it's performed by humans, human reproduction is technically artificial. Obviously, that's being a little silly, but the fact that it's a logically defensible position

No it is not.
Reductionism is not logic.

Until we can create from scratch the biochemical componants to form a viable humam sperm and zygote you cannot claiim that humans make more humans.

We can facilitate the organic process of creating new life, but we are still incapable of producing the componants required for it.

adjl posted...

If we program a robot to think, it will think, and it will think thoughts we didn't explicitly tell it to think. It will be doing what it was programmed to do, but that doesn't mean it will behave predictably, any more so than humans doing what they're programmed to do means they will behave predictably.

Humans do behave predictably. Thats what psychology studies. We are just so incredibly advanced that we cannot keep up with all the reasons why we do things, and frankly it the WHY doesnt matter as much as the WHAT anyway.

If we were to make an AI capable of doing things so quickly in ways we cannot predict that it appears random yet with specific purposes and goals, that does not mean it isnt capable of being predicted, nor does it mean the AI has developed sentience just because one of those goals turns into self preservation, or building more of itself.

Unless we want to call viruses alive too.
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Conservatives for the most part are anal about a lot of things. That's nothing new!

It's mostly Democrats that want to ban the sale of violent videogames, Leland Ye for example: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-02-25-disgraced-senator-who-campaigned-against-violent-video-games-jailed

He was found guilty of trying to smuggle guns into the US from the Phillipines though.

After Leland failed, Jim Matheson tried to do the same but the Supreme Court smacked them down for trying to violate free speech rights: http://thehill.com/policy/technology/277781-dem-bill-would-ban-sale-of-violent-games-to-minors

That's Democrats for you, zero respect for the first amendmant.

bulbinking posted...

7, 4, 3, 1 are also impossible.

1. My computer automatically increases the speed of its CPU and GPU fans in an effort to maintain a constant internal temperature. This one's easy even without looking at hypotheticals; many automatic systems currently in use have the ability to regulate themselves to maintain optimal operating conditions.

3. Metabolism is the process of taking in material and converting it to energy. Most robots do not do this internally, instead relying on external power sources, but a robot that relies on solar power is effectively metabolising (it's functionally analogous to photosynthesis, it just skips a few steps). Hypothetically, a steam-powered robot that burned coal to generate electricity would be performing metabolism, and could do so autonomously if it were so programmed (though autonomous feeding is not a criterion for life).

4. Growing is simply building more of oneself autonomously. There's no reason to believe a robot could never construct and add additional subunits to itself. I can't think of any functional niches such an ability would be useful for, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

7. Reproduction is simply making more of oneself. In the case of robots, it's typically more efficient to have a separate robot that handles all of the robot production than to include autonomous reproduction abilities in a robot that's also serving other functions, but being less efficient than alternatives doesn't mean it's impossible.

All of them are in fact possible. It would be inefficient to shoehorn a robot into fitting some of them, but that's just further justification for not considering robots to be somehow less than organic life ("you don't qualify as living because you have more efficient ways to carry out the tasks that we demand entities do in order to define them as living therefore we're going to deny you rights that we earn by being alive").

bulbinking posted...

Do some learning about neurobiology. The beain is waaaaaay more complicated than how you are describing it

I never actually said anything about complexity. Just the fundamental principles that are involved. Absolutely everything the brain does can be boiled down to electrochemical signals. The complexity of behaviour that arises from that stems from where, when, and how frequently those signals fire, and it's miraculous that such a fundamentally simple, almost binary system (an action potential either fires or it doesn't, with the refractory period setting it apart from something truly binary) can give rise to such a magnificent diversity of functions and behaviours. But fundamentally, even human sentience is just electrochemistry. Everything about who you are comes from sodium, potassium, and sometimes calcium ions crossing membranes. Why, therefore, could artificial sentience not similarly be them product of electricity? It'll be really bloody complicated, sure, but there's no fundamental reason to think it'll be impossible.

bulbinking posted...

Reductionism is not logic.

It can be. Your position is that artificial sentience will never be possible. Mine is that there's no reason to believe that because there are no fundamental differences between natural and artificial intelligence. That doesn't mean they're the same, but if it's possible to build up the complexity of natural sentience from simple electrochemistry, insisting that it's impossible to do the same for artificial sentience from electricity means you have to find a step in that process that will truly be impossible (as distinct from one which we haven't solved yet).
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bulbinking posted...

Until we can create from scratch the biochemical componants to form a viable humam sperm and zygote you cannot claiim that humans make more humans.

As I type this, I am making new sperm out of the digested components of last night's dinner. I'm using my testicles and not my hands to do so, and it doesn't require any sort of deliberate, conscious input, but I - a human - am making those sperm myself. To create a baby, I - a human - would have to deliver those sperm to the same place as a human egg, which would then have to be implanted inside a human uterus, at which point a human female would provide the necessary raw materials (which she will have to acquire and digest herself) for that human to assemble itself inside her.

Every step in that process requires the action of one of more humans. One of those actions even has to be deliberate and conscious, without considering the deliberate and conscious effort needed to provided the molecular components needed. Given the definition of "artificial" (made or produced by human beings), can this baby that was produced entirely by humans not be considered artificial?

bulbinking posted...

Humans do behave predictably.

Broadly? Yes. Narrowly? Not so much. The neurological processes involved in very specific decisions are generally too complex to follow directly, courtesy of the wide range of stimuli involved in reaching decisions. Psychology as a whole does not have the information necessary to predict that I would have sweet & sour chicken for lunch today, even if it could easily have the information necessary to predict that I will eat lunch. Predicting that would require impractically close scrutiny of my life, what was in my fridge, and how much time I had to prepare today's lunch.

Similarly, you can broadly predict what a neural network will do. If programmed to, say, come up with names for paint colours (actual experiment with hilarious results, I recommend looking it up), you can predict that it will come up with names that resemble words and associate them with RGB values. It's a lot harder, however, to predict what names it will come up with and which RGB values it will associate with them. The algorithms are there and can be followed, but given the size of the data set used as stimuli, predicting the outcomes is very difficult and requires paying very close attention to those stimuli.

bulbinking posted...

Unless we want to call viruses alive too.

There are many who would. They act very much like living things, growing and reproducing and adapting and responding to their environments. They're made of many of the same things as cells, with some even having cell membranes. The big sticking point with viruses is their lack of metabolism, since they do not consume energy to maintain themselves. Whether or not that should be enough to disqualify them, though, is very much debatable, and the biological community is fairly split on that.

That distinction, however, is fairly academic, since the only real reason to worry about whether or not they're alive is to figure out how to kill them if necessary (which medicine is able to do), and biologists can study them even if their field title could technically preclude that.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

When someone wants to censor something for sex, they're usually coming from the Right. When someone wants to censor something due to violence, they're usually coming from the Left.

In the same vein, Right-influenced censorship tends to be rooted in morality, while Left-influenced censorship tends to be rooted in emotionality. The Right wants to censor things they think corrupt the moral and ethical side of society, the Left tends to go after things they think are disruptive to social harmony.

But both sides feel like there are ideas that need to be silenced or condemned, because they assume people aren't capable of making their own decisions and need to be protected from their own weakness. And both sides abuse the fuck out of the "Think of the children!" argument.

Careful PO, you're sounding dangerously moderate there.
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