Analyzing JT's rhetoric: assassins vs. gamers

Have you ever read those signs at a Zoo that says "Please don't feed the bears"? Everytime you draw attention to Jack Thompson, you are in fact 'feeding the bear'. Stop feeding him and let him disapear from the public's attention.

jack can fuck off. how is he still getting news? i feel i have more importance than he does

Wow, all that dry logic felt like a shot in the face. That wasn't really necessary though, everyone knows: Nobody fact-checks politicians unless you're a anti-patriot or a dirty liberal.

Dick Cheny shot a man in the face, is he a gamer or an assasin?

JT is an idiot. Can't we just stop giving him the attention he desperately craves. He is always looking for attention probably as a result of a troubled childhood - maybe his parents never let him play videogames.

I thought we already established that JT has Protection From Logic.

Anyway, what video games have taught me is that you want to sneak up on people from behind, which would make shooting them in the face impossible. I'm sure most hitmen realize this as well. So I suspect the face-shooters are mostly incompetent versions of their respective gamer/hitman categories.

Thank you lloyd, that was the exact phrase on my mind...

Sounds like we either need to Seize the Vice-President for charges of assassin, or we need to seize his game library and do some sort of bias analysis...

This d-bag becomes more & more a self important prik every time I hear about him. Doesn't he realize that if we were all blood thirsty lunatics, we would have slaughtered and eaten him by now. Or at the very least, run him over with a car.

It's enough to make you wish that more gamers really were psycho.

It seems to me that the only person that has a problem distinguishing the real world from imaginary worlds is Jack Thompson.

This post is why I read Joystiq instead of other gaming blogs. I like reason and logic, and am glad you guys use it. Ohter sites would get into a hysteria about JT calling all of us hitmen (or women). Instead you guys point out that while that was probably his intent, he is so incompetant that he couldn't even do that.

This has been JT's tactic all along. Take things out of context, then blow them out of proportion. His quotation is designed to create a correlation in the mind of the reader where the sentence doesn't *actually* imply one. If I were to say:

All Joystiq readers are gamers or retards.

obviously I'm implying that gamers == retards (or at least some do), even though in actually, "All Joystiq readers are gamers" is true in and of itself.

If we're talking about about logic and short quotes you can get even more ridiculous if you want.

Gamers are directly responsible for 99% of murders or cats say "meow."

This is technically correct, but don't doubt it would get quoted as "Gamers are directly responsible for 99% of murders[...]". JT knows the media well enough to exploit this type of FUD.

So.....
Before there were video games, all murders were caused by hitmen?
Oh sorry, all murders involving a gun to the head were caused by hitmen?

Wow, didn't know that...Thanks Jack for edgumicating me.

"Nobody shoots anybody in the face unless you're a hit man or a video gamer."

Looks like somebody has never heard of porn.

Fantastic piece of induction... I think you are now my most favourite person.

Maybe I should delete above before posting, but then I wouldn't have a post. Damn.

On a side note: Jack has figured me out...I'm not only a gamer but also a seasoned hitman...I have learned everything I know from gaming...So, I will confess what I know with a segment called:

“TOP TEN THINGS I’VE LEARNED ABOUT REAL LIFE FROM VIDEO GAMES”

10) Sneaking up on someone in the snow will cause them to get a "!" above their head, at which point the will say "Huh? Who's footprints are these?" Then they will search for me by following the footsteps.
9)I can get shot by an infinite amount of bullets so long as I can find more body armor laying around.
8)I can evade capture by hiding in a box.
7)If I get arrested for murder, I will be out of jail soon after with less money and without my weapons.
6)a. Some objects I shoot will be affected by my bullets, while other objects will not be affected at all.
b. Some objects can be manipulated, while others cannot.
5)I can cause massive damage to giant crabs by getting it on its back and hitting it in its weak point.
4)I can equip as many guns as I want, without any change to my physical appearance.
3)Who needs Medicare and health insurance...I can find randomly placed medipacks for all of my ailments.
2)When dead bodies have been laying around for long enough, they disappear and leave useful items for me.
1)I can continue of I die, or load from the last save point.

Wait, I am a gamer, but not a hitman. So the only logical way I can commit murder (not that I'd ever want to) is a gun to the face? Can't I shoot someone in the nuts or beat them with a cricket bat?

Jack deserves our attention. He is so wise. We (gamers) are ticking time bombs with crazy killing skills. People shouldn't sleep at night knowing their nieghbor is up practicing his/her trade: death dealing.

The army of gamers is ready and willing, America, are you?

Now I'm considered a hit man? Sweet

Big props for including that shot from the movie 'The Professional', it is by far my favorite movie of all time.

Love that picture from Léon.

when will people learn .. . aim for the knee caps, it's not considered attempted murder if you shoot the knee caps .. .


knee caps .. .

No women, no kids.

I don't see 120 million gamers killin' other people...

I find it odd by using Jack Thompson's logical explanation...

This guy needs so psychiatric attention.

So wait, in a few months the FBI is gonna be knocking down my door and shoving my face into the tile for being a gamer the same way they would when they found out where a wanted hitman lives? God damn what's this man after? What's his point? I know plenty of divorced wives that go to firing ranges and shoot dummy targets in the face all the time pretending they are old husbands. If anything you should keep an eye on those crazy old ladies, not us humble gamers.

Anticrawl

Now, clearly- with such logic on JT's part the crucial debate must come about-

Is Jack Bauer a Hit Man or Gamer?

Paintballers shoot people in the face all the time. Photographers shoot people in the face too, and much like gamers, nobody gets hurt...most of the time.

Porn actors also shoot people in the face, but seeing as how Jack views gaming as masturbatory, maybe he was counting porn stars as well-trained gamers.

so does he pick the door with the lady or the tiger?

What if someone commits suicide and shoots themselves in the face? Does this make them a gamer, hit-man, or both?

Oops, hit enter too quick...

I think these lines point to a possible problem??

"Neher, whose mother has a mobile home parked on Gore’s property, and Hunter Everette, 17, of Denham Springs, were booked with first-degree murder and armed robbery on Wednesday."

A quick Google on crime rate:
http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=3330

The estimated population, in 2003, was 9,204.
The number of violent crimes recorded by the FBI in 2003 was 174.
The violent crime rate was 19 per 1,000 people.

Are they going to arrest the other 173 (2%) people (violent criminals) for playing games?

I think this area has some other problems besides games.

Nice proof there Joystiq. I rather go with the proof by contradiction though. I find it the most easiest way to prove things. Let A = Shooting someone in the face, B = Hitman, C = Gamer

Now A --> B || C(A implies B or C) Assume its false. Then B and C has to be false for the statment to be false. Therefore,QED Shooting someone in the face does not mean you are a hitman or a gamer. I hope I did that right, or I'm in serious trouble for my finals.

He's not trying to suggest a correlation between gaming and assassination on an individual basis (e.g. all gamers are hitmen), but he was counting on their adjacency in the same sentence to make the association seem heavier than it is. It's a brand of double-speak that can be effective (and dangerous) if executed skillfully. Fortunately, that's not the case here.

Thompson's remark just clumsy, a perfect example of why no one, not even judges or law enforcement personnel, take him seriously. It doesn't take a law professor to reveal the logical fallacies in this statement, although anyone familiar with Logic 101 should be able to identify them. (I came up with three: hasty generalization, false analogy, insignificant cause in the presense of others.) Indeed, for abusing such a basic legal tool, one wonders what qualifications this man has to be a lawyer.

Well, at least anyone can be an "activist."

I think Thompson might be right. If someone hooked one of those brain-interface devices ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCSSBEXBCbY ) up to a machine that would fire a gun pointed at his face, I think any gamer would fire, whether they consciously wished to or not.

"Nobody shoots anybody in the face unless you're a hit man or a video gamer."

Looks like somebody has never heard of porn.

Am I the only one who thinks this is the funniest comment on this thread? I'm still laughing my ass off.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v492/1up_clock/THOMPSON_CAN_JUST_STFU.png

Joystiq, can I request for you to use this image for every Jack Thompson post from now on?

You know Jack Thompson is totally right. I mean those suicide bombers in iraq got a huge fill of GTA before they decided to kill. And dang, everyone in the US armed forces, secret service, policemen, pirates, Vash the Stampede, the Power Rangers, Robocop, Terminator, Indiana Jones, Chuck Norris, Steven Segal, Neo, Hill Billies durin' a feud, (HOO BOI! WE GOTS A FEUD!) if violent video games never existed, world would be a better place.
And to that feller up there who said to "Stop feeding the bear"....c'mon man, we have to wait so long for chances to make fun of this senile waste of dump, why not relish in the fact that he is mentally insane, have a few good laughs, have a few beers, and play some GTA? :P im done.

0.

For those of you who want to know, that number is how many people I've killed.

6.

For those of you who want to know, that number is how many violent video games I've played in the last three hours.

11,000,000.

For those of you who want to know, that number is how many people Hitler killed.

0.

For those of you who want to know, that is how many violent video games Hitler played.

.. I'm not really seeing the connection here.

>> Kritz

Well, Kritz, Hitler's version of "video games" at the time was riding his horses to death, literally. He was a gamer for sure (too bad they weren't invented yet).

"Nobody shoots someone in the face unless they're a psychopath or really, really angry." That would be more accurate.

One could argue that, logically, JT's statement "Nobody shoots anybody in the face unless you're a hit man or a video gamer." could mean that people only get shot in the face if someone, somewhere, is either a hitman or a gamer. Or it could mean that the person JT is addressing, if a gamer and/or hitman, is responsible for every person who gets shot in the face.

Logically speaking, the first and second halves of JT's statement aren't connected in quite the way that I believe JT intended.

JT may be one of the most disturbed people alive. What scares me is that media outlets think he's a credible expert on violence in videogames. When I see comments like JT's I often ask myself how many North American murders were committed by someone who has spent time at church, or has played Monopoly (or Scrabble, etc....). Gamers are an easy demographic to pick on for a few reasons:

1.) We don't vote. "According to 2000 census data released in 2002, it would be a drastic change. The two age groups that represent the majority of gamers, males ages 18 to 24 and 25 to 34, had respective voter turnouts of about 30 percent and 40 percent in the 2000 election. Those were among the lowest turnouts, behind only females ages 18 to 24." - Politics creep into the world of gaming - Missourian News - November 1, 2004

2.)Most of the noise we make is within our own community. While we bitch and complain that JT and his ilk treat us unfairly, we only make noise to each other.

3.)Parents of younger gamers are easily influenced by these morons because they are so intimidated by video games that they're scared to learn for themselves. It's much easier to take someone else's viewpoint as your own than to make up your own mind.

People like JT make noise quite frankly because it works. Look at recent examples of reclassification of games. If 'Hot Coffee' weren't in the news no one would care. It would fall under the same category as nude skins for the Sims.

Make your noise, but also write letters to local, State (or Provincial), and Federal Representatives. Let them know that you're a voter and a gamer. You care about your community and your right to enjoy entertainment mediums of your choosing regardless of what some whack-job lawyer from Florida thinks about them.

Ah, funny. The US Military uses video games and computer simulations specifically to train soldiers. Great. Now our entire military is an army of Hitmen & Murderers. LOL>

QED - Quad Erat Demonstratum. Nice finish. I've been trying to finish my arguments with my wife using that, but somehow, there is always a plausible rebuttal. Or maybe I just know that she is always right.

And I am with you, KOS. Minimal rebuttal chatter in the mainstream media to his sensationalist approach.

Well, I mean...if you want to kill somebody instantly with almost absolute certainty, and he's facing you, where else are you going to shoot him?

It seems to me that the only people who would shoot a person in the face are those who are actually interested in killing that person. It's not like only gamers and hitmen know that the face is in front of the brain...

Jack's mistake is in logic. Since there's at least one case where someone may get shot in the face and not by a sniper or gamer, and we all know this, it's plain for anyone to see that Jack's very premise is invalid.