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How about blaming their own lack of responsibility? They were capable of feeding themselves just fine.

And hi. That's one way to make an entry.

Yeah, but I bet it's not easy to blame yourself, knowing that means you neglected your very own child because you were too busy slaying fantasy skeletons...

It's sad...

But the title of the article is just weird..

The title is:
Nev. couple blame Internet for neglect
Yet the couple did plead guilty for child neglect, which means they acknowledge their own responsability... Sensational misleading title, I'd say?

Tricky wrote:How about blaming their own lack of responsibility? They were capable of feeding themselves just fine.

And hi. That's one way to make an entry.

I agree with all of your points here..

Honestly, whatever happened to people being able to assume responsibility for their own actions? It's always something or somebody else to blame rather than taking a good, hard look into the mirror.
Sure, they pleaded guilty.. but clearly they are also attributing other factors as an influence to their behaviour.

I think it goes without say that pretty much everyone here enjoys gaming to some degree. I cannot, however, imagine any one of us ever neglecting a child.

btw,
Welcome to GB MacPistol, that 's certainly quite the début.

Situations like this make me fear for the future of gaming, and its gradual acceptance into society as an art/entertainment form. The reason I say this is because of people like Jack Thompson and Mothers Against Everything groups which only look at isolated and rare instances of negative gaming connections.

That, of course, is all said with the assumption that people should retain accountability for their actions. That means feeding your kids/yourself, not neglecting reality, and most importantly, owning up to your own weakness if you let your responsibilities slide.

And yeah, very misleading article, but that is how news sells... In sensational little tidbits...

Aegis wrote:Situations like this make me fear for the future of gaming, and its gradual acceptance into society as an art/entertainment form. The reason I say this is because of people like Jack Thompson and Mothers Against Everything groups which only look at isolated and rare instances of negative gaming connections.

Yes, and these groups form a crusade.. not unlike Prohibition..
This concerns me as well.

I'm kind of neutral on this right now, not what the couple did to the kids, just the whole "I'm addicted to video games," bit. Obviously it's not like smoking, willpower CAN break the addiction if there is one to begin with (Whereas smoking could interfere with shear willpower due to the way nicotine affects the brain), yet it is technically a distraction of sorts. I myself have been lost in games for hours on end but I only though I played for a half an hour at most.

For ME, addiction is possible in video games, but to a couple people that have not one, but TWO kids, this is just a load of bull that they were "Too addicted to video games to care about children."

Sigh, it is just typical human nature to place the blame of ones action, or inaction in this case, on others.

Siberys wrote:Obviously it's not like smoking, willpower CAN break the addiction if there is one to begin with (Whereas smoking could interfere with shear willpower due to the way nicotine affects the brain)

But surely, without going into details, computer games just like smoking both have a psychological and physical component and don't differ from each other that much (except the "substance-blood-brain barrier" part).
The hypothalamus creates peptides which gives the person "positive associations". This works the same way whether it is smoking, computers, sex, alcohol...etc etc...

Smoking has everything to do with willpower. The first step of becoming nicotine-free is all about having the will to become so.
If unsuccessful, then the willpower quite simply enough isn't strong enough...

Loki[D.d.G] wrote:Sigh, it is just typical human nature to place the blame of ones action, or inaction in this case, on others.

Agreed! Of course though, these people are responsible for their own actions. Sure an addiction can work as an explanation to why it happened, but it doesn't take the responsibility away...

A tough problem though, is to recognize when a person (due to factors such as mental illness) isn't accountable for their actions, and where to draw this line.

Though, as in this case where the addiction is "self-induced" or however I should put it, there clearly can't be any doubt...

sigh Jack thompson is going to have a blast with this one, with his "blame the game" attitude

Shrike86 wrote:sigh Jack thompson is going to have a blast with this one, with his "blame the game" attitude

That's true...

I'm not that concerned for the general gaming, but for roleplaying. It wouldn't be the first time roleplaying has been blamed for having negative effects on people. I recall once here where I live high concern rose when people thought that LARPers (form of roleplaying) weren't any more "in touch with real world", but more sunken in their fantasy worlds. Of course, it was untrue, but I think few rare events lead to the mass to believe that way. And that affected the whole way of thinking towards roleplaying in any form (LARP, tabletop, video games...).

I'm just concerned that after this incident, RPG will be considered as something bad, even though it ain't any more bad as any other "hobby" or way to spend time.

dragon wench wrote:btw,
Welcome to GB MacPistol, that 's certainly quite the début.

Thanks. I'm not a gamer and probably never will be (video games or RPGs) but your activity and mine share a deep similarity: the dumbed down public likes to blame video games and RPGs for the various actions of bad people, just like the dumbed down public blames my guns and my rights to purchase the gun of my choice without registration or getting a stupid license, every time there's a shooting.

Every time a bad person (or couple) who likes video games or RPGs does something bad, the dumbed down public blames the GAME (because it's easier than actually thinking and using that brain of theirs), and every time there is a Virginia Tech shooting, the anti liberty forces come out of the woodwork to try to pass even more bad laws that attempt to tell me I'm not allowed to own that gun or that ammunition magazine because it allegedly holds "too many" cartridges. Or they try to pass more bad laws that attempt to tell me I must get this license or that permit, or pay this fee before I can purchase or carry my firearm because of what SOMEONE ELSE did (i.e. some nut who should have been shot by an armed student or armed teacher at Virginia Tech).

Interesting parallel you make there. Not necessarily sure I agree that they should be placed at the same level of lethality or responsibility (though, I am willing to agree that guns are only as dangerous as the people who use them).

I think the real target of any potential crusade against gaming will be against online games, specifically MMORPG's. The idea that people spend copious amounts of time online playing games is already something many groups of condemned. Once you add in the neglect of responsibility and human life (theirs and others), it will become a moral issue so highly polarized that the Christian Right can take it straight to the bank.

However, the issue will come from the fact that those crusading will not be attacking all the people accountable. Instead, they will target either the gamers, or those publishing/developing said games. They should, however, be targeting both parties, as both are accountable for what happens: Publishers/developers from allowing such a misuse of recreational time, and the gamers for not having the common sense to know when they have played enough, or too much.

Listening to the gun analogy to the video game stigma I came up with the following.

Events have multiple causes. A gun is not the cause of a murder. A person is not the cause of a shooting (independently). It takes a combination of causes and conditions to produce an event.

In buddhism this is known as dependent origination. Things come into being due to an endless weave of karmic relations. We think that one single thing may be the cause but that is an illusion. If we analyse what that person or gun is we find it is dependent on other causes (parents, culture, manufacture, former lives, mood, triggering event).

Also anger, greed, and ignorance usually is a cause of a case of shooting or neglect.

To solve the root of the problem each person has to look at themselves. But we do live in a society of laws. If instead of traffic lights we had no order at an intersection then there would be chaos.

Personally I don't have any problem with people collecting guns but I would require that they cannot shoot anything alive. What good comes of a gunshot? Other than the death of a living thing. Human birth is precious and blood should not be spilled for a hobby. It harms humans if they take the life of an animal because the animal did not freely give that life to them. It is caused by anger, greed, and ignorance which harms the human and causes them to suffer lower rebirth.

I don't have a problem with target practice against inanimate objects.