Basketball - The Silent Killer

Mouse

Mouse

CAGiversary!
Ok, so reading Jack Thompson's thinly-veiled insanity via his corrospondence with Scott Ramsoomair at VGCats, I decided to start up a conversation with him. Possibly because I want to experience his madness first hand, but also because untill next semester starts, I've got nothing to do.

I chose a ludicrous topic, but tried to make my intent behind the letter ambiguous. Am I fucking with him? Am I insane? WHAT'S GOING ON!?!?!???? I'll keep you all updated, as this all continues.



Mouse to [email protected]
2:05 pm

Dear Mr. Thompson,

On your website www.stopkill.com you reccomend that parents have their kids "start shooting hoops instead of humans." While I'm sure that your reccomendation is well intentioned, (getting kids to play sports instead of sniping kids off their school roof) it ignores the dangers of that silent killer... Basketball.

Some laugh me off as delusional, but I've seen you on TV, and in you I see a kindred spirit. You see, there are a large number of murder (or attempted murder) cases in which basketball was involved, yet no one sees the connection. But you were able to see the connection to videogames. So you might see this one, as I do. Aside from the widely telivised Koby Bryant rape case and the Pacers/Pistons brawl, I've included a number of links to murders and acts of violence in which a basketball (or the game in general) was involved.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...16.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/ne...E5C587548694C703862570530010D4A5?OpenDocument
http://www.laramieboomerang.com/news/more.asp?StoryID=103787
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv...y/LAC/20050806/BASKETBALL06/TPNational/Canada
http://www.thelantern.com/media/pap...ted.Killer.Gets.Maximum.Sentence-964801.shtml

There are more, if you're truly interested. But please, get the word out, and help ban this violence-inducing sport as soon as possible!
​
 
Those news stories are idiotic. You didn't even read them, the last three (the ones I didn't have to register to read) were all about former basketball players.

Basketball had nothing to do with those.
 
[quote name='fanskad']Those news stories are idiotic. [/QUOTE]

You're Idiotic ;)

Jack Thompson sucks.


What is the thread even about? Where am I?
 
[quote name='fanskad']Those news stories are idiotic. You didn't even read them, the last three (the ones I didn't have to register to read) were all about former basketball players.

Basketball had nothing to do with those.[/QUOTE]

But that's the point... one thing (basketball) doesn't have any correlation whatsoever to another (violence). It's all speculative. Same goes for video games. I think it's quite foolhardy to make the comparison anyway since violence has been around for far longer than video games. I doubt you could say that Hitler was influenced by Pacman (considering Hitler predates Pacman by about 30 years or so) nor could one say that the Spanish Inquistion is the fault of Pong. If a kid was stupid enough to enact a scene from a video game that harms another person, that kid was doomed from the beginning. That person either has parents that neglected their duty of actually raising their child instead of using the TV/video game as a baby sitter or was already messed up in the head to begin with. And that's why Thompson is an idiot - he's using circular logic that states that because the kid played a violent/nude-filled video game, he'll be corrupted when all the facts may not be known. The kid's father might abuse him physically by hittin' too many times in the head or his mom's a crack whore or his mom WAS his dad before an operation or any other number of other reasons why a kid might snap. It's like blaming a kid who went on a killing spree because he had oranges for breakfast. They have nothing to do whatsoever with each other.
 
[quote name='Graystone']You're Idiotic ;)

Jack Thompson sucks.


What is the thread even about? Where am I?[/QUOTE]

Oh yeah? Don't be a buzzkill douche-hole. Walk away before I smack you like an uppity Ho. :)

Seriously, I'm sure you could find thousands of examples where a former videogame player acted violently. It's just that news sites don't quote someone as "somebody who used to play video games".

The fact of the matter is, what rockstar pulled was foul. They never should have left that content in as an M game. They're just too cowardly to go for the Ao rating. Which if they were really about "artistic expression" they would head straight for. They're a bunch of exploitative whores. I agree that GTA is either a symptom or a cause of the "stupidization" of America.

M and Ao videogames should not be sold to minors. Period. M should mean 17+ and Ao should mean 18+. Period. I dont think it should be legislated, but self-enforced. And they should enforce it, really enforce it. Move theaters do, bookstores do for porn, BB cards you for the softcore they sell, WM cards you for R and higher movies. Why not enforce that with videogames?
 
[quote name='jaykrue']But that's the point... one thing (basketball) doesn't have any correlation whatsoever to another (violence). It's all speculative. Same goes for video games. I think it's quite foolhardy to make the comparison anyway since violence has been around for far longer than video games. I doubt you could say that Hitler was influenced by Pacman (considering Hitler predates Pacman by about 30 years or so) nor could one say that the Spanish Inquistion is the fault of Pong. If a kid was stupid enough to enact a scene from a video game that harms another person, that kid was doomed from the beginning. That person either has parents that neglected their duty of actually raising their child instead of using the TV/video game as a baby sitter or was already messed up in the head to begin with. And that's why Thompson is an idiot - he's using circular logic that states that because the kid played a violent/nude-filled video game, he'll be corrupted when all the facts may not be known. The kid's father might abuse him physically by hittin' too many times in the head or his mom's a crack whore or his mom WAS his dad before an operation or any other number of other reasons why a kid might snap. It's like blaming a kid who went on a killing spree because he had oranges for breakfast. They have nothing to do whatsoever with each other.[/QUOTE]

But Jack Thompson wont read it that way. He'll see that one kid plays basketball, and there was a shooting up the street. One dude played BB in college fifteen years before he killed someone. Another was a murderer who's former BB coach testified as a character witness along with his 11 year old child. He'll brush it off.

If the OP had formed a coherent argument with actual cites of violence done after a game ended, leading up to a game, or because of a game, I would be patting him on the back, but it was a pointless excercise. My beef isn't with the thesis, it's with the supporting examples. Mouse just googled "basketball" and "murder" and regurgitated whatever he found.
 
[quote name='fanskad']Oh yeah? Don't be a buzzkill douche-hole. Walk away before I smack you like an uppity Ho. :)[/QUOTE]


Oh Ok I call ya later.
 
[quote name='fanskad']Oh yeah? Don't be a buzzkill douche-hole. Walk away before I smack you like an uppity Ho. :)

Seriously, I'm sure you could find thousands of examples where a former videogame player acted violently. It's just that news sites don't quote someone as "somebody who used to play video games".

The fact of the matter is, what rockstar pulled was foul. They never should have left that content in as an M game. They're just too cowardly to go for the Ao rating. Which if they were really about "artistic expression" they would head straight for. They're a bunch of exploitative whores. I agree that GTA is either a symptom or a cause of the "stupidization" of America.

M and Ao videogames should not be sold to minors. Period. M should mean 17+ and Ao should mean 18+. Period. I dont think it should be legislated, but self-enforced. And they should enforce it, really enforce it. Move theaters do, bookstores do for porn, BB cards you for the softcore they sell, WM cards you for R and higher movies. Why not enforce that with videogames?[/QUOTE]

I don't necessarily disagree with you but Jack Thompson goes too far in my opinion. For example, why not just slap an M rating on Bully (isn't it gonna be rated M anyway?) instead of preventing it from being released?
 
IIRC, Rockstar is/was (at least before the Hot Coffee thing) going for a T for Bully. But Jack is a douchehole, so he has to get it banninated so his social penis feels bigger.
 
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