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From: pennsays
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  • I also have this idea of how many Soldier are coming back to America with PTS and PTSD. And this is the generation that grew up with the Mortal Combat series, with the blood settings and the graphic Fatalities. Wouldn't having played games like that growing up, have desensitized them? And yet there is such a HIGH number of soldiers coming back so heavily traumatized by war. I'm not a doctor or anything... but.... I was just thinkin' that the other day.

  • @Kipicus well maybe because when you blow someones head off in a video game your mind knows it's not real and you know no one really died. Obviously the emotional reaction is going to be different if you kill someone in real life just imagine someone you shot was lying in a pool of blood in front of you spitting up blood and begging for god unless your a fucking pyschopath your going to have an emotional reaction. It all depends on the person and how they deal with those feelings.

  • @droedup92 I really wish you had better tact when putting together your comment; but anonymity begs for the freedom to shock regardless of the circumstance to the victim, I suppose. Either way, I appreciate your comment, although your violent description made it difficult for me to understand what you where saying. But I got'cha, that indeed would be the difference between those two things. The difference between playing a video game and killing someone. It almost didn't even need to be said.

  • @Kipicus What point were you trying to make with soldiers and video games anyway? How do you know if any of these people that came back from combat with PTS even played video games(violent ones at that)? Your statement was pointless.

  • @droedup92 If you really think about it, do you know a soldier, or ANY man that grew up in the 80's on up that NEVER played video games? I'm some have not, but I am sure that the majority of soldiers that have fought in this current war have grown up playing game like Mortal Kombat, Primal Rage and Silent Hill, and yet there are SO many PTSD cases. If video game desensitized, wouldn't there be FEWER cases of PTSD? Just say'n. I don't know where you aggression is coming from.

  • Desensitized to Violence is such fucking a narrow minded post modernistic thing to say, if anything it's the other way round and people have actually BECOME sensitised to violence. trauma is a natural part of life, our birth is traumatic, our death, the best we can hope for is a peaceful one but i'm guessing most don't get what they hope for. so who actually decides what is the naturally correct state of mind, and who the fuck said being desensitised removes your ability to tell right from wrong

  • Video games don't cause a person to be violent. However, I believe that video games cause kids to have a different view on violence than they would otherwise.

  • The root cause of Hitler's final solution was clearly the culmination of massed griefing over time from other players in Halo 3.

  • Comment removed

  • lol did pen yell at the camera because we are kinda desensitized to yelling.

    you know to kinda prove a point?

  • I agree Pen. If you remember people had the same fear years ago about Dungeons & Dragons and rock music.

  • I'm not so sure I totally agree with Penn on this one. I'm not saying I'm gonna boost a car after playing GTA, but after watching "Rocky", I wanna train, after watching a kung fu click I want every move I make to make a sound. And if you browse the pages of THEYNC(dot)COM for a few hours you're pretty much immune to gore. That's my 2 cents.

  • That's to bad that he wont be haveing any more content on here. I like to hear what he has to say...even if I sometimes don't agree with him, it is still entertaining. I'll have to goto the page and look at the info there.

  • Hi Penn fans. Penn Says videos have been discontinued, so you won't be seeing any new content on here. You can check out our Profile on our Channel Page for more info. We'll still be checking in, so hope to keep chatting with you all! Thanks!

  • The most violent shit I have ever witnessed was in real life. Video game typically do a poor job in depicting violence. Perhaps if the showed more accurate depictions and the sounds of people suffering people would not want to play the game.

  • in fact, it may be true that violent video games help to get our the rages that people get when they snap.

  • I love violence, it's awesome! I just don't like the consequence of violence.

  • Hell, the most violent places on earth are places where video games are rare or nonexistent.

  • The group dynamic made them stay together. Unfortunately it is human nature to not go against the crowd, and like with what happened in Rwanda and Zaire (two extreme examples, and you wont find too many video games), people when in a group being pressured by a group can do bad things, and in this case do nothing when they see bad things being done.

  • Nice ending

  • I wish he would do some sort of follow up on that kid who shot the gun, it was kind of disturbing seeing a nice kid like that crying.

  • I wonder if Penn would go so far as to say mainstream music (not only rap), is making kids pursue an image that could be detrimental to their well-being.

  • I'd like to see Penn Jillette justify mosh pits where people rip pigs apart while they're alive, and even worse where people get trampled to death.

  • and thats the musics fault or the games fult pepole are crazy alwas have alwas will be. there have been anamile sacrifices from the begining the bible even encourages it

  • @theendofit Well as unjustifiable as any animal sacrifice is I'd rather it be because someone thought that there was an all powerful reality warping being demanding it rather than just doing it for fun. Also most animals killed by the Jews were killed in kosher laws, which killed the animal as fast as possible.

  • not only jews have history of it almost every religion there is

    back in roman times i bet you would have a hard time finding anything that now is the blame back then you had people fighting in the coliseum that was for fun

    there has alwas been those who do it for fun and those that do it for god and that is wrong and wasteful of a life the majority of the animal should be put to good use if you take its life cuse all life is of value. If there is a god im sure hed be against killing for him

  • @tohidefromourways Ugh, I have never heard of that (not Penn, just helping out with the comments).

  • @pennsays

    Does penn read some of these? How often?

  • @tohidefromourways LOL wut

  • I say this very same response all the time......

  • You're really good at saying "Gangster Rap." Most people say "gangsta" or "gangster" but you go right inbetween, like Indiana Jones escaping a deadly gauntlet situation.

  • LOL. "I'll rip your fuckin' head off!"

  • I think the reason the kid couldn't fire the real gun is because he was old enough to understand the rules of situation, environment and perspective. He knew that on the screen, the rule was to shoot or be killed. That just proves his perspectives were working. But everything he's downloading into his head will still be content he'll pull from as an adult. So it's a matter of mental investment, usefulness and timing.

  • The people that commit those crimes were messed up before they did the act. That is only addressing the small percentage that actually surrounds themselves with such entertainment. And that percentage is indeed, very small.

  • i play a lot of very violent video games, and some of my favorite movies are extremely gruesome and disturbing. i have never harmed another human being, and i never will. i am only desensitized to violence that i know is not real. the opposing arguments are just silly.

  • @calvinscheuerman do you run over animals for 'fun' or hurt an animal for 'fun'? if so, you're desensitized to violence.

  • Of course i don't hurt animals for fun. That's fucking sick.

  • I think what the Chinese do to animals can be so controversial that people go to the extremes. one day animals are either gonna die out, or adapt to learn to say 'no more! stop!'

  • @tohidefromourways I know I wouldn't eat a talking animal.

  • @pennsays I wouldn't either. Biologists are actually so advanced that they can give mice embryos thumbs. Whether or not a mouse can be born and those said thumbs actually function is beyond me. I saw it on NOVA and didn't get to finish the episode. I hope someday we can genetically alter an/all animal(s) with the proper vocal chords to speak a human language and find out how they feel and think, instead of making assumptions from their actions. :P Then again, Penn, I'm just a wishful thinker.

  • @tohidefromourways I'm not Penn, I just help out with the comments. Do you think even if we gave them vocal chords they would tell us? Parrots can emulate us, and they have shown how smart they are, but they haven't told us how they feel.

  • @pennsays "Parrots can emulate us, and they have shown how smart they are, but they haven't told us how they feel." Are you familiar with Dr. Irene Pepperberg and Alex the parrot?

  • My son for his science fair project tried to figure out if video games make you more angry. He took the blood pressure and pulse of his subjects before and after 1/2 hour of a shooter game. He found that blood pressure and pulse went down. I was surprised.

  • @yrwehere4

    Probably because games allow you to take action against something, such as stopping a bad thing from happening.

    It can also allow you to take action that would be unacceptable in normal society.

    Either way, it allows for a release for much the same reason as a psychologist may ask a patient to punch a pillow.

    Usually, stress is what's pent up, not what's let out.

  • @Watcher, so violent video games actually help with aggression not cause it. :)

  • Help with aggression as in alleviating it, usually, but it depends on the individual.

    But, I don't believe a video game as a cause for the same reasons that other forms of expression can't be. At the very most, a violent video game may be symptomatic regarding a bigger problem such as a mental or anger issue.

  • Agreed!

  • @yrwehere4 people use video games to vent yes, but some go to that mentality as anger/emotions flare up due to system response to patterns in thinking and relations to thoughts.

  • To compare the violence and dismemberment in video games to the violence and dismemberment that happens in real life is utter stupidity. The gore in video games is downright cartoonish to actual mutilation.

    I work in the medical field, and part of my training involved a lecture with the county coroner, who brought a slideshow and photo album of corpses he's had to clean up.

    Compared to the gore in games, real life gore is FAR more disturbing.

  • @angelfox123456

    Exactly.

    The problem with people who contend that violence in expression results in desensitization is that it ignores the distinction between fantasy and reality; that most people may already realize that what they are seeing in a movie, reading in a book, listening in music, or doing in a game is in fantasy.

    The moment the same stuff happens in real life, it will be different. The same people unaffected by evisceration in fiction WILL be affected by it in real life.

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  • *golf clap* So you're saying you don't agree with him? I couldn't really tell from your ad-hominem attacks.

  • Excellent ending Penn!

  • Penn is right. I have been listening to

    violent music and watching violent movies most of my life and I'm totally numb to it in the artistic form. But if I see a video on the internet of someone getting hit by a car or kicked in the face it makes me cringe. Also, if video games are such an influence on people's behavior, then why are there so many driving games and so many shitty drivers?

  • What is your position on marketing toys based upon PG-13 movies to children under 13?

  • Good question!

  • Depends on the context of the movie.

  • Well for example, a Heath Ledger Joker action figure in ToysRUs. I found Heath Ledger's Joker disturbing, I surely don't feel kids should be encouraged to see the Dark Knight based upon the action figure.

  • @deanlol

    Well, on that I can agree with. But it's all subjective; there are some people who wouldn't let kids have it and others that would with guidance and, of course, those who don't care for one reason or another.

    Then there's "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith," which is also rated PG-13. No doubt many kids like Star Wars and toys related to that specific movie can be harder to justify keeping away from them.

    Hence the question of context.

  • Ok Penn. Shutting up now. Yessssir!

  • It Took 2000 Yrs, for the Flat Earthers to Accept, THE EARTH IS NOT FLAT, and CIRCUMNAVIGATED by the rest of the Universe. If you're Too Stpid to understand that Science is Real. PENN is a good guy

    MICHAEL ERIC DYSON one of the smartest Humans on the planet!

    But they both need to stop Reciting URBAN EUBONICS, ECONOMICS, ERBONICS. (Pseudo Science). Go back to Universities and Confer with "REAL SCIENCE! PHYCHOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY, PSYCHIATRY.. You might learn to think beyond a "Joke!

  • Fortunately the agument presented here by PENN, would not have been presented by any og his ROLL MODELS. Shecky Greene, Milton Berle, Fred Astaire, Katherine Hepburn, John Wayne, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope or

    "ANYBODY! Even from the conservative side, THEIR WERE NO STUPID PEOPLES IN DEM DAYS!

    MICHAEL ERIC DYSON questioning

    BILL COSBY, in a BOOK!

    They wouldn't have "Believed" It!

  • What you're basically saying is CHARLES BARKLEY is not a Roll Model!

    ALLEN IVERSON, KENYAN MARTIN , MARCELLO ANTHONY, LEBRON JAMES!

    Kids are SCRIBBLING on their NECKS!

    See those NY cops Shoot the Somalian immigrant multiple times. Then the Ethiopian, Brides Groom. Quadraflegic tossed from his Wheelchair, Ca man shot in the back lying on the ground. Iraq Vet shot in chest during traffic stop. Just a few of 1000s. All (TRAINED & LEARNED responses from TV, FILM< VIDEOS. Games & RACIST Training!

  • @jor99912 You're an idiot.

  • @reddevilyi You're Retarded Aren't Ya!

  • These segments are distributed by Sony Television? "Penn Says" is not exceptional or inspired.

  • the link between video games and violence is just bull shit. i played violent games from age 14 on. a few months back i bought a gun for self defense and target shooting. funny thing is i am not excited about using it for defense. i am actually more cautious about provoking people especially while driving. I don't want to have to defend myself but that is weird isn't it? violent games should make me want to, right?

  • lol i finished watching his video half way through and I do not think videogames make people more violent, just makes them care less about seeing violence.

  • @Hectortuba155817 unfortunately i can't speak for others but whenever i see or have seen violence against another person without context my reaction toward the perpetrator is anger. violent video games never influenced that feeling.

  • just as equally as there are people who can tolerate the media violence, are assholes who ARE influenced by it. what about the males who womanize, or have no positive influence in life besides their fucking TV or MUSIC, or any other media-art outlet? you're being biased because you too educated.

  • If that's the case then just ban stupid people from life.

  • @Nihility420 MORONS resort to name calling whenever an issue is over their heads. That's every issue, All the Time!

  • I don't think it's necessarily desensitized, as you say, but made our society more accepting or tolerant of it. Not in a blatant way, but a more insideous and sneaky way. It has been growing steadily over time. Not the level of violence and depravity, but the growing indifference. At least, that's my take. What is your thoughts on that take?

  • I agree with everything that you said, except when you said that violent imagery cuts down on violence.

    I know this is far from empirical evidence, or a scientific study, but...I certainly feel a lot better after a hard day when I've played something really violent. It's really very cathartic.

  • in regard to my previous comment it's been documented that someone who NEVER watches/plays violent media is far more likely to engage in real violence.

  • haha these people are probably not desensitized when they see buttholes in real life!

  • im sure there is an extreme wow factor when witnessing a real life asshole.

  • its the same as horror movies we like to be scared we know there no flesh eating zombies it is pure entertainment  everybody grow up sometimes it seems everyone has lost their fucking minds when it comes to common sense

  • i think it's a perfect storm of ideas or maybe a desire that just happened in all of those guys...but i really don't know..

  • I have a theory about why we watch violent media....it's not cause we're sadistic it's because it shocks us. We like being grossed a little bit we like being appalled. When you see someone laugh at a gory scene pay attention to his posture he's usually cringing. That's because he's in sympathetic pain for the character on the screen and he's laughing when it subsides. It's the guy who is completely unamused by violence you have to watch out for, cause it doesn't phase him. He's the psycho.

  • @Limejello10512 - that's a great point and excellent advice!

  • in 917 in iceland a 7 year old name egil skallagrimsson felt some of the local boys cheated him in a game so he went home grabed an axe and burried it in one of the other kids head. His mother said he'd be a great viking one day. Now violent acts like that happened all the time way back when, now it's a rarity so I don't think we're out of control at all.

  • Penn, I couldn't agree with you more.

  • I am not saying that watching a movie or playing a video game, or hundred movies or video games, will prime most of us to run amok at a drop of a hat. But for an individual who is already psychologically unhinged the violence in entertainment could provide a template of behavior. I can't help but wonder if Columbine would have happened the way it did if movies like Matrix or Natural Born Killers did not exist.

  • I was going to call you on the matrix coming out after the columbine shooting, however, you're right. It did come out three weeks before hand so ya, that was probably what did it

  • You are missing my point. It does not matter if Matrix specifically came out before or after. Enough movies of this kind are out there for it not to matter. Nor am I saying that movies or video games caused Columbine. I am however proposing that the exact way that incident and others like it happened may have something to do with with it. If our entertainment was dominated by samurai flicks would those two kids have gone into that school swinging samurai swords? Something to think about.

  • While I do disagree I think perhaps we should be on the lookout for vampire style murders?

  • Do a Google search for "vampire cult murders"

  • Haha, wow, I found only three in the last 13 years but I imagine that is Google and my laziness' fault. Still I get what you're saying, I just think that censorship on anything intended for an adult audience no matter how violent, lewd or disgusting is a horrible step in the wrong direction and that anyone who may have been inspired to kill by a movie could have just as easily been inspired by a book or other people

  • By no means do I advocate any kind of censorship. I love action flicks. And while I am not into video games these days I have played my share a few years back. Restricting the freedom of the majority because of a small minority is absolutely wrong. But I think we should be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that our freedom to enjoy our entertainment is not necessarily without a price.

  • Cool, I think I can get behind that

  • To me, we're all asking the wrong questions. Those kids shot up that school for reasons far beyond "culture" of any kind. They didn't take tech 9s into school cause it's so "rad." They did it because they had a violent desire. Regardless of culture, it would have shown itself.

  • I do not think I have argued against that point. I am not saying that violet entertainment media lead to violence. What I am postulating is that it at least had a role in shaping the way the violent desire got expressed.

  • Is violent art not a method of expressing violent desire in & of itself?

  • Violent entertainment a method of expressing a desire to make some cash. Not that there is anything wrong with that. But lets face it, most of it is not exactly art.

  • In the 70's & early 80's Clint Eastwood & Charles Bronson were "action" film icons with Dirty Harry & Death Wish films. These movies today look rather tame and boring. There are not enough guns and the ones that are used are boring revolvers. There are not enough action , not enough blood. So what titillated us then, now makes us snooze. Does this not point to some desensitization?

  • Violence has existed throughout history and i suspect will continue well after we die. Caligula, one of histories most brutal individuals, existed long before the simulated violence we have today. There was even plenty of violence during the 70's and 80's. In fact there has been a decline of violent crime in recent years.

    Oh, and a 44 magnum is not a "boring revolver".

  • This desensitisation argument is completely right. That's why I am opposed to any films or TV or books with happy endings, or which portray any sort of niceness or pleasantry. Because it desensitises people to pleasure and happiness, so that they no longer respond to happy things that occur to them, and they end up depressed for the rest of their lives. That's what densitisation logically means, right?

  • The propensity to violence isn't social, its more environmental. If one is forced or raised to feel life is not important then they are less likely to protect it. But seeing a lot of violence does not make one violent.

    You can be desensitized to the results, the gore perhaps but not to the actual acts of violence that cause it.

  • good stuff @imkluu seeing a lot of violence does not make one violent just like seeing happiness does not make a jerk a happy person

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