Craig234 after I reread my last paragraph in my long post it looks like I overreached in my theory. I implied that you believe games are a major reason for real violence and that's not what you said. You simply said it doesn't mean games don't have any effect.
Looks like I repeated what others accused you of and I shouldn't have gone there. I was doing so well I thought, until my last paragraph. Well then, drop the last paragraph off my long post and let's all continue from there.
And in case you're wondering about my most people are a little bit bad comment, yes I think most people in the general population are bad. And that's the reason imo for wars. I didn't address whether or not games instilled the bad characteristics of people aside from the last paragraph in my previous post. But we're dropping that paragraph anyway right? I tend to think games are not the reason for it now or hundreds of years ago.
Edit, well I did touch on it a bit in my Middle Ages segment where I talked about parents worrying if family members were being badly influenced by swordplay games. And I imagine the family members answered back to their parents that it's no different than military training. And that they're just practicing in the backyard to prepare for the defense of their country in the event of invasion. I'm not saying today's video military games can work in the same way.
Thanks for the comments.
I don't think the issue is 'causation' of things - the simple notion of things in the game being repeated.
It's more an issue of how they affect people's view of war or other things. I'll go back to the analogy of slavery - when it existed, many people had a hard time thinking any other option was possible. It was simply how things were and quite normal, and people were blinded to seeing the system as harmful though it was right in front of them.
And people can view war as something very horrific that they have to try a hundred times more to prevent than they do now - or they can view it as 'normal'. and think more about 'how to win it' than how to prevent it.
The simple act of enjoying years of wargaming can reinforce to people to think more of the 'art' of war and to view it as just a normal human activity and justified and inevitable and not to think of really challenging and opposing it when it happens in real life, rather thank thinking of it as about as horrific as, say, having 'rape day' one day a year where rape is legal.
I don't think we have wars so much because of the problems people have, but rather because powerful interests want them and the people don't resist enough.
"Nazi leader Hermann Goering, interviewed by Gustave Gilbert during
the Easter recess of the Nuremberg trials, 1946 April 18, quoted in
Gilbert's book 'Nuremberg Diary.'
Goering: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some
poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that
he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece.
Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in
England, nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is
understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who
determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the
people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or
a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy the people have some
say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the
United States only Congress can declare wars.
Goering: Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the
bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them
they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of
patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in
any country."