Why would it be Anita Sarkeesian? Googled her and she also hasn’t really done anything new in 10 years, and her mainstream outlet is retired. So what’s the deal?
She openly manipulated footage and lied about certain games to justify making those “feminist” pieces about video games. There are videos all over Youtube calling her out for it.
Sure, and vote for the zero “weapons restrictions” politicians. Because too bad a few kids die if my campaign donors lose even a quarterly percent if we stop selling military weapons.
Not true. Even a person of faith can make the conscious choice of not providing any support in the form of votes to the politicians who keep striking down gun reform. It’s a case of “What one permits, one promotes.” If someone isn’t willing to do something, anything which will make an actual difference no matter how small that might be, to move the needle in the direction of ending the regularity of this violence, they are willing to let it happen. Too many people will take the “Well, thankfully it’s not happening in my area.” approach, which just lets… Read more »
Yep, and then eventually it is in their area. My work had a shooter, only 1 victim luckily but only due to it being targeted and him attempting to flee, prob right away.
And i heard a student survived their 2nd school shooting down in florida recently.
It doesn’t need to be a 100% fix to be worth trying to make things better. Even 5% is several kids/year saved and numerous teens&adults.
It’s more about the people in positions of power and authority who CAN work toward change simply not bothering and offering platitudes instead. And then there are the people who don’t even WANT change because the guns apparently have more rights than the potential victims.
As a person of faith myself, what we can do is stop acting like hypocrites who have no agency at all in this. What the typical American “Christian” believes has absolutely nothing to do with what the Bible says, and they as a whole have been led into this strange philosophy where every single lesson that Jesus taught is neatly compartmentalized into Sunday morning and taught with asterisks and footnotes. These people make me feel embarrassed to even state my faith. You who support this, have no idea what the faith is that you pretend to be affiliated with. “Then… Read more »
And to any of you who’d reply back, “But what about what the rAdICaL LeFT is doing?!” Enough with the whataboutism. Make like Matthew 7 and take the log out of your own eye before you start criticizing other people for the specks in theirs.
Precisely so. Leave the whataboutisms, the cherry picking, and the compartmentalizing behind. Few things irritate me as much as cherry pickers who use that cherry picking to justify their bigotry and terrible treatment of others.
A faith and being faithful to it ties the faithful to some of the problems every faith has (just as every political party, and so on). Being a rabid atheist has issues too. Faith isn’t all the problem, but a fair number of Christians in the US wouldn’t be recognized by Christians in other countries – some churches and maybe some that deserve the name cult are part of the problem. What are the major reasons a society has violence and mass shootings? Insufficient mental health resources that are affordable, a society that venerates firearms and violence, corporations related to… Read more »
So then what’s your solution? If you can think of a way I as a part-time transcriptionist with no money no political clout, and no idea what kind of law would be able to stop criminals from stealing guns and using them on innocent people can do, feel free to let me know. I’m sure those on Capitol Hill would also like to know what your personal solution for ending gun violence would be, as well.
Don’t let it get you down with the downvotes Richard. These comment boards have a lot of Blueskyers. They can’t handle people who have beliefs outside of Progressivism. When sympathy is the only thing a person has to offer in a fallen world, it’s still worth offering. Especially when people claim that it’s worse than doing nothing at all.
It’s not sympathy that people are shouting down, it’s fake sympathy that politicians put on so they don’t have to answer for their inaction to improve the situation.
That and people pretty much call out the Republican politicians for their ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ because they know they don’t mean it. They have the ability to get something done but don’t do it due to the politics and them supporting the right to bear arms over everything else. They don’t even entertain common sense gun control reform.
If gun control worked, Chicago would be the safest city in the country. It has some of the strongest gun control laws in the entire United States.
Though I am curious because I’ve heard this buzz phrase so much in the last ten or twenty years: What would be considered a “common sense” gun control law? Give me an example of one, please.
Even as incompetent people as the traditional media wouldn’t describe Quake Arena and the like as “pretending to be an assassin”.
Maybe Spy in Team Fortress 2, but that’s still killing the enemy team. At least in amongus the imposter does actually pretends (or supposed to pretend) to be friends with everyone.
It doesn’t even really need to be a real game. In fact, probably was intended to not sound like any one particular game. This is probably like the “Immortal Thirst” storyline, in which it could literally be one of hundreds of games on the market, so there’s no reason to single out one.
I think you’re confusing the multiplayer of earlier AC games with what Unity had. In Unity, it’s only co-op with a friend, no trying to kill them. The previous ones where you try to kill other players they aren’t portrayed as your friend in universe.
They probably mean “friends” as in other players.
Not like they are putting much thought into it.
Also they are wrong about one other thing.
Many games are based on real historical events (battles and wars) or general way things worked in human history (f.ex. there are wars in games like Civilization).
So, games don’t cause violence.Violence causes video games. 😉
The bully effect will cause people to not be your friend so they don’t get bullied, too. Als people will be prevented from seeking friendships because people will randomly join the bullying (disappointment / danger of more suffering)
Multiplayer Halo lets you play in either co-op or vs mode, so…
GUNnibal
28 days ago
This feels like the beginning of a new conflict between our dynamic duo and Elija (the super fast guy), since this was almost exactly his argument last time they met.
Yeah, I suspect his first reuse of his powers will be in defense of his store or against Elija at the very least.
Jack0r
28 days ago
Is video game scape goating still a thing in your part of the world?
It was really big before like 2010 where I live, but then died down rapidly when gaming went from a thing kids and nerds did to something that everyone and their mom did.
Haven’t heard any video game scape goating in at least 10 years.
Of course it’s still a thing in the USA. Mass shootings are still a thing in the USA. And most politicians will blame anything and I mean anything to avoid addressing the real problem: the easy access to guns that were designed specifically to kill humans. If the shooter played violent video games, you bet your butt they’re gonna bring that up. It’s more common to go after the mental health of the shooter (while of course voting against any bill that might make access to mental health care easier and more affordable), along with the typical useless “thoughts and… Read more »
Just because people are dumb enough to believe it doesn’t make it true, people still think that republicans are good for the economy even though every economic recession that we’ve had in the last thirty or forty years has been caused by them and their stupid idea that if you give rich people more money that they will just share
If conservative media wasn’t considered trustworthy or credible, we wouldn’t have a felon in the white house now, would we? This is not the world of our fathers and grandfathers. We have corporations who have spent billions on understanding crowd psychology and how to subtly influence people to think and feel and choose one way or the other. Our reliance on the internet for media, and how it uses personalized algorithms to show people news articles, videos, clips, and memes that will resonate with us and drive up engagement, has made it so that people are extremely manipulatable, into thinking… Read more »
Like I said, just because people trust it doesn’t make it credible, we have a guy with brain worms still trying to find evidence of a link between vaccines and autism, people are stupid. Credible doesn’t mean it’s accurate or true, it just means that someone believes in the source of information, also I never said I wasn’t influenced by media that I consume, I just meant that those inbreds believe whatever their favorite talking mouth pieces tell them
As you said. “Credible” doesn’t mean that something IS accurate or not; “credible” is whether it is believed or not. As an example: I do not find the majority of extremist news to be credible. I, me, myself, am making a statement about what I believe. However, you didn’t say “None of those I consider,” you said “none of those *are considered*.” Meaning that you are not speaking anymore about your personal opinion, you are speaking about consensus. To say they are not considered trustworthy or credible, means that somewhere between “practically no one” and “literally no one” is the… Read more »
Yes, because decisions are made *all the time* by people not familiar with the subject matter or actual facts. You handwaved away someone’s frustrations with how media outlets use scapegoating to shift blame, so that real change that could save lives doesn’t happen, with “But that’s just conservative media; that’s not credible or trustworthy.” That statement is only relevant if what you mean by it is that this scapegoating is ineffective because these sources aren’t believed. But they ARE believed. In the immortal words of George Carlin, “think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half… Read more »
This thread seems to be mostly about a misunderstanding / mismatch in definitions. Tim uses credible and trustworthy as in “somewhat factually accurate” or “somewhat close to the current state of research”. Basically, a source that is worthy of trust, that delivers useful information. Eldest Gruff on the other hand uses these words as in “something that a lot of people believe or trust in”. Both definitions are correct, but both of them contradict each other in this case. Right-wing media is mostly propaganda and certainly not interested in factual accuracy or delivering quality, useful information. But at the same… Read more »
Liberal media isn’t the one being found repeatedly in studies to have more people ignorant of issues after watching it than if they watched no media at all, only conservative media has that distinction. I don’t think liberal media is completely trustworthy, but the distinction is pretty clear
Who he specifically denounced right before he said the “very fine people” part. The actual quote is something along the lines of “…and I’m not talking about the N@zis or white supremacists, because they should be condemned every time…” and so on.
He only said that after because he realized how bad it looks, it sounded like he was giving them a free pass and he kinda was since what the other side was protesting was taking down a statue dedicated to slavery
CONTEXT: In a news conference after the rally protesting the planned removal of a Confederate statue, Trump did say there were “very fine people on both sides,” referring to the protesters and the counterprotesters. He said in the same statement he wasn’t talking about neo-Nazis and white nationalists, who he said should be “condemned totally.”
Maybe we can find a common ground? My mind is very open to the idea that both sides aren’t out for the best of their citizens. Sure I might have a preference to one side, but if I see how the lobby works I think the votes of people is too easily overruled. They give some tokens here and there along the party line, then make some decisions, legal or not, that suspiciously is in great advantage of someone powerful. My two cents? If you think that the politicians have the best intentions for you, you’ve got it wrong. There… Read more »
They’re considered credible to the people who watch them and that’s really all that matters. They’ll say it and then millions of people will believe it.
“Interesting” thing – the guns aren’t inherently the problem, but the people who wield them. It’s the whole “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” thing. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be harder to get a gun in the US – I think it absolutely should – but the real problem is all the fear mongering. Libs of TikTok once posted a map of American schools as “sites of Anti-American activity.” People like Michael Knowles and Matt Walsh are telling their listeners all the time that teachers are trans-ing their kids in schools. There’s a general anti-education rhetoric throughout the… Read more »
You know, some years ago I thought that what the US needs to prevent shootings and lower the level of gun violence is stricter gun control. But then I found out that in Switzerland the percentage of weaponry in the hands of civil population is not lower (and I think even higher) than in the US. And still we don’t hear about frequent shootings in that country. so yeah, it seems that the main problem is not in guns, but in heads. :-/ (I must say, I am not an American. European. Own a couple of guns, for sports mainly.… Read more »
Although the problem is partly in the heads, there is a reason guns shouldn’t be allowed for many reasons. In Switzerland and several other countries the guns have a whole other culture behind it. There is much less a self defence culture, and guns are thought of as dangerous things that should be handled with care. There’s emphasis in handling them correctly at all times, and little precedence to use them in defensive scenarios. In short, there is gun control. It just isn’t legislation. Another is the ease. Did you know that the most people in the USA dying from… Read more »
You can’t compare Switzerland with the US, there are massive differences, especially around the gun culture. The reason why Switzerland has a high rate of gun ownership is because every able man is required by law to do military service, and after that they have to do repeat trainings over the next 10 years. And these people are required to keep their service weapon at home, well secured. That’s the difference between Switzerland and the US. A lot of swiss people have guns at home, but these are trained soldiers who got extensive gun safety training, who are regularly inspected… Read more »
The “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” is a rubbish argument. What guns do is allow people to kill and damage over distance in quantity. A gun’s only function is to destroy, it has no other purpose. The UK, where I live, had a school gun massacre in 1996. It led to tighter gun legislation and we have not had a school gun massacre since. People still own guns (my friend has 8!) but they are not easily available over the counter for a couple of hundred pounds to anyone who passes a cursory check. Fear mongering is not… Read more »
multi-billion. but again the mental states of the ones who do this is what needs to be addressed.i might be wrong but all of the public school shootings have been done by someone who went to that school,the ones at universities may not be like that. no one in charge at any level (or the parents) wants to even think american kids may need mental health screenings. its just not going to get done,i mean how can you even begin to help these kids when the school counselors probably are not even allowed to talk to the kids about stuff… Read more »
‘Gargling old piss’ party. Same issue, different day. heaven help them if they are Made to swallow, not spit. Bullets X10 the cost and locked up tighter than legal marijuana or firing pins DNA coded. Easy solve.
It’s certainly not as loud as it used to be, but there are still some people consistently trying to link events like this to video games. It just tends to get quickly buried under all the OTHER scapegoating.
I feel like those voices might be a bit louder in a world that has actual video game themed vigilantes.
Only in the United States, less often now cause its not being secretly funded by the NRA. NRA used to sponsor groups who were anti-video game violence, like Jack Thompson and other “experts” and trot them out to the news networks. Since all the news outlets were scared to be sued by the NRA… they took the scrapes they offered to fill air time. Nowadays, gun manufacturers earn tonnes of money for licensing their trademarks/copyright on their guns to the big games like Call of Duty etc. and see games effecting weapon sales. They don’t want to bring attention to… Read more »
They literally just did this with Luigi Mangione in December. So yeah, it’s still a thing. (This is from the NYPOST, but many outlets ran with the same “news”)
It is ironic. The amount of violence and death in music, movies, series, and even just the news is easily comparable. In how many movies it is even glorified? How many are more realistic than video games?
Just imagine if they ran with other games in his library.”
“Suspected killer Luigi Mangione spent years training in 1 – vs – 100 death matches on remote island.”
“Suspected killer Luigi Mangione found to be millions of Bells in debt to Tanooki loan shark”
“Suspected killer Luigi Mangione found to have dated, married, and divorced twelve individuals in small valley town; refuses to comment on the dozens of children turned into doves.”
Jedi
28 days ago
Luckily, that scapegoat is a blast from the past …. i hope ?
Tim shared a screenshot of the NY Times saying that Luigi Mangioni played an assassin game, and that’s why he did what he did.
Del Cox
28 days ago
Well that’s not the direction I was expecting the story to go.
Qstknight
28 days ago
I remember the time before video games when playing D&D and listening to heavy metal music was the scapegoats for something like this.
Brian
28 days ago
Yeah, the title of this is making sense now get a feeling someone is gonna have issue with videogame-themed supers in the city.
Daniel
28 days ago
Oh! So we get the return of this “anti-gaming” guy, whose name I don’t remember but have superspeed and brother killed by gamer?
PhobosRising
28 days ago
Now would be the perfect time for Ethan to gamble with his power, put on a jesus outfit, and go fuck with the zealots. Full “mental middle-finger so hard it scratches the itch on your shoulder”. By death 8 he will have an off-shoot cult that would make Josef Seed jealous.
At this rate, I’m just hoping for the apocalypse. My mother’s side came from Germany’s ww2. I have no desire to have similar stories for my children. If conservatives want power so much they think playing gestapo is a good idea, trying to nominate a pope to shield their actions, taking basic rights from others… burn it to core so even prepper bunkers are vaporized. Turn this shitshow into a fireworks show that would make 4th of july ones feel limp.
Last edited 27 days ago by PhobosRising
Casra
27 days ago
😐
Merida
27 days ago
Amongus
Joel
27 days ago
Can’t believe no one has dropped this one in here yet.
Video games don’t cause violence. Lag does.
Kasaix
27 days ago
I thought people nowadays cared more about which political party the criminal voted for rather than video games.
Eldest Gruff
27 days ago
I find this storyline has a funny little irony here. On one hand, there’s what Lucas is saying in panel 2, which echoes my own frustration at how we (that is, American culture, sorry, rest of the world) just refuse to actually do anything to stop the violence; especially when the most obvious answer is gun control. On the other hand… well, “Vigilante superheroes hiding amongst the people, springing forth to stop crime,” really isn’t all that different from “The answer to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” And yeah, they could register… Read more »
I don’t think that’s a good, or fair, comparison. It only sort of holds up in the vaguest hypothetical lines, and it simply doesn’t match with the actual situation. In terms of stopping crime, the biggest problem with the ‘good man with a gun’ argument is how it’s demonstrably not true. Countless people currently have guns, and all it does is enable the shootings, without any of the supposed ‘good men’ doing anything to stop them. On the other hand, the vigilante superheroes (in these stories at least) DO actually stop crime. And they don’t cause the myriad of random… Read more »
Timmeh
27 days ago
To remember that Tim writes these comics WAYYY in advance, and it could coincide with a shooting…
In America, shootings are not hard to accidentally coincide with. Collegehumor joked about abc ceo needing to block airing “School Shooter Shooter”. Ask Australians what happened after their big shooting.
Yep. We took swift and decisive action, the politicians actually worked for the people (for once), and we haven’t had anything nearly as bad since. Yes, there has still been some gun violence (like the police killed a couple of Decembers ago in QLD), but the fact that those stories are so shocking and rare speaks volumes to the efficacy of our gun laws. It won’t be easy to fix in America. Yes, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”, but why let people have guns so easily, if they’re just going to use them to kill others? Yes, Switzerland… Read more »
Nick
27 days ago
Oh yes. Place the blame on video games all over again. *sigh*
Entercoven
27 days ago
Not that I WANT this to happen, but I can already feel the Ethan gets Shot! cliffhanger happening. They go out, try to stop a shooter, Ethan gets shot, switches to the Players for a while, and the next part will be Ethan in a hospital recovering from the wound, which would make Lucas sure he didn’t have his powers back, maybe go on for 3-4 pages with Ethan slowly getting better. Then one day just appears back home, fully better due to infinite continues power. When asked, he really needed to pee, tried to get up carefully, but forgot… Read more »
I’m not going to address… most of that. But one thing; Ethan doesn’t respawn back in their home, he respawns moments before he died.
wysskers4
26 days ago
I was TWELVE (12) years old the first time I got swept up in this kind of scapegoating 😀
It wasn’t the nerds, it isn’t the nerds, and it will never be the nerds.
william
25 days ago
ooh hello Jack Thompson… glad to see your still somewhat relevant.
Verdiekus
25 days ago
XKCD has a delightful comic on the blame game through history. First it was books, then it was newspaper, then it was music. Video games are just the latest excuse to keep from admitting that some just aren’t right in the head. (Sadly, most of the time it’s how people are raised.)
Some of the time, at least. Majority of the latest cases I’ve seen have been people with legit mental health issues (diagnosed or otherwise) getting their hands on legally owned guns that were otherwise secure because they belonged to family members.
Interesting that they never did VR in that fashion.
The Riddler
23 days ago
As a general rule, thoughts and prayers in the face of a tragedy get some unfair criticism. I understand that some might see it as a trite, empty, or meaningless phrase because … quite simply … that phrase is the only thing that happens to be seen. When a person is feeling angry, or raw, or morally outraged about something they feel is important? They are (at best) annoyed, and (at worst) even angrier when they see a bunch of other people repeating a comment that the angry person has chosen to believe is token and vapid. But there’s no… Read more »
24
Is their world’s version of Jack Thompson about to appear?
Jack Thompson did interact with Ethan 1.0 if you count the animated series as canon.
Wouldn’t be the first time Tim’s brought him up.
Nah got to update the material, it’s Anita Sarkeesian equivalent now. Thompson hasn’t been relevant in 10 years at least.
Had to google this Anita thingy … wish I didn’t … *sigh*
Why would it be Anita Sarkeesian? Googled her and she also hasn’t really done anything new in 10 years, and her mainstream outlet is retired. So what’s the deal?
neck beards gonna neck beard
Can’t be a man who is causing the problem if a woman was in the space at any point.
Thompson was in early 2000’s, sarkeesian mid 2010’s, show me more recent equivalent and I’ll update my reference.
You still haven’t said what she has supposedly done. Sarkeesian’s activism is unlike Thompson’s.
I find her a lot more preferable to Thompson. She’s not anti video games, she just anti having women being exploited in video games.
oh my god get bent you gamergaters
there is nothing wrong with sarkeesian tho. I mean, unless you’re an incel, of course.
Pretty much the woman’s only crime was making some feminist pieces about video games.
And if that’s enough to get you to issue death threats, I suggest growing the f**k up.
She openly manipulated footage and lied about certain games to justify making those “feminist” pieces about video games. There are videos all over Youtube calling her out for it.
Lemme guess. Those videos were made by white guys, probably with an abundance of facial hair.
(As a white guy with a little facial hair.)
Actually, most who called her out were women. Though I dont see what gender has to do with Sarkeesian being a lying propagandist.
They’re skipping “thoughts and prayers” because pretending to give a shit has gotten too hard to do.
True, I think it’s “things like that take place” by now.
Shit happens when you study..ehrm… Heavily armed?
I think it’s unfair to assume those who offer thoughts and prayers are only pretending. For most people of faith, it’s the only thing they CAN do.
Sure, and vote for the zero “weapons restrictions” politicians. Because too bad a few kids die if my campaign donors lose even a quarterly percent if we stop selling military weapons.
No it’s not. US gun laws are ridiculous. If we licenced our guns like we do our cars we’d have 1/100th of these events.
Not true. Even a person of faith can make the conscious choice of not providing any support in the form of votes to the politicians who keep striking down gun reform. It’s a case of “What one permits, one promotes.” If someone isn’t willing to do something, anything which will make an actual difference no matter how small that might be, to move the needle in the direction of ending the regularity of this violence, they are willing to let it happen. Too many people will take the “Well, thankfully it’s not happening in my area.” approach, which just lets… Read more »
Yep, and then eventually it is in their area. My work had a shooter, only 1 victim luckily but only due to it being targeted and him attempting to flee, prob right away.
And i heard a student survived their 2nd school shooting down in florida recently.
It doesn’t need to be a 100% fix to be worth trying to make things better. Even 5% is several kids/year saved and numerous teens&adults.
It’s more about the people in positions of power and authority who CAN work toward change simply not bothering and offering platitudes instead. And then there are the people who don’t even WANT change because the guns apparently have more rights than the potential victims.
As a person of faith myself, what we can do is stop acting like hypocrites who have no agency at all in this. What the typical American “Christian” believes has absolutely nothing to do with what the Bible says, and they as a whole have been led into this strange philosophy where every single lesson that Jesus taught is neatly compartmentalized into Sunday morning and taught with asterisks and footnotes. These people make me feel embarrassed to even state my faith. You who support this, have no idea what the faith is that you pretend to be affiliated with. “Then… Read more »
And to any of you who’d reply back, “But what about what the rAdICaL LeFT is doing?!” Enough with the whataboutism. Make like Matthew 7 and take the log out of your own eye before you start criticizing other people for the specks in theirs.
Precisely so. Leave the whataboutisms, the cherry picking, and the compartmentalizing behind. Few things irritate me as much as cherry pickers who use that cherry picking to justify their bigotry and terrible treatment of others.
Gruff, I knew there was a reason I liked you. This passage with current events subbed in is incredible and makes such a great point.
A faith and being faithful to it ties the faithful to some of the problems every faith has (just as every political party, and so on). Being a rabid atheist has issues too. Faith isn’t all the problem, but a fair number of Christians in the US wouldn’t be recognized by Christians in other countries – some churches and maybe some that deserve the name cult are part of the problem. What are the major reasons a society has violence and mass shootings? Insufficient mental health resources that are affordable, a society that venerates firearms and violence, corporations related to… Read more »
so, they do absolutely NOTHING usefull
So then what’s your solution? If you can think of a way I as a part-time transcriptionist with no money no political clout, and no idea what kind of law would be able to stop criminals from stealing guns and using them on innocent people can do, feel free to let me know. I’m sure those on Capitol Hill would also like to know what your personal solution for ending gun violence would be, as well.
Don’t let it get you down with the downvotes Richard. These comment boards have a lot of Blueskyers. They can’t handle people who have beliefs outside of Progressivism. When sympathy is the only thing a person has to offer in a fallen world, it’s still worth offering. Especially when people claim that it’s worse than doing nothing at all.
It’s not sympathy that people are shouting down, it’s fake sympathy that politicians put on so they don’t have to answer for their inaction to improve the situation.
That and people pretty much call out the Republican politicians for their ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ because they know they don’t mean it. They have the ability to get something done but don’t do it due to the politics and them supporting the right to bear arms over everything else. They don’t even entertain common sense gun control reform.
If gun control worked, Chicago would be the safest city in the country. It has some of the strongest gun control laws in the entire United States.
Though I am curious because I’ve heard this buzz phrase so much in the last ten or twenty years: What would be considered a “common sense” gun control law? Give me an example of one, please.
Thoughts and prayers requires actually doing something (unimpactful as it may be already). Pointing a finger I suppose uses less energy?
What video game would have you actually killing friends and not enemies from the ingame lore point of view?
Wait. Oh.
They’re talking about ‘mongus
Assasins Creed Unity (the multiplayer part)
where you are a litteral assasin playing online with your friends and your goal is to murder them.
Quake / arena shooters / old UT
Basically any game that has a ladder/leaderboard and is not my little pony/hello kitty online.
Methinks
Even as incompetent people as the traditional media wouldn’t describe Quake Arena and the like as “pretending to be an assassin”.
Maybe Spy in Team Fortress 2, but that’s still killing the enemy team. At least in amongus the imposter does actually pretends (or supposed to pretend) to be friends with everyone.
It doesn’t even really need to be a real game. In fact, probably was intended to not sound like any one particular game. This is probably like the “Immortal Thirst” storyline, in which it could literally be one of hundreds of games on the market, so there’s no reason to single out one.
I think you’re confusing the multiplayer of earlier AC games with what Unity had. In Unity, it’s only co-op with a friend, no trying to kill them. The previous ones where you try to kill other players they aren’t portrayed as your friend in universe.
They probably mean “friends” as in other players.
Not like they are putting much thought into it.
Also they are wrong about one other thing.
Many games are based on real historical events (battles and wars) or general way things worked in human history (f.ex. there are wars in games like Civilization).
So, games don’t cause violence.Violence causes video games. 😉
It doesn’t even have to be “ingame lore,” I can think of two MMOs where you can kill your friends in PvP.
The bully effect will cause people to not be your friend so they don’t get bullied, too. Als people will be prevented from seeking friendships because people will randomly join the bullying (disappointment / danger of more suffering)
Just throw in Among Us and you get the “gateway”
🙄
Doesn’t matter the game, movie or song, it’s all just an excuse to attribute blame elsewhere rather than confronting the real underlying issues.
Multiplayer Halo lets you play in either co-op or vs mode, so…
This feels like the beginning of a new conflict between our dynamic duo and Elija (the super fast guy), since this was almost exactly his argument last time they met.
That’s pretty much what I figured too
Yeah, I suspect his first reuse of his powers will be in defense of his store or against Elija at the very least.
Is video game scape goating still a thing in your part of the world?
It was really big before like 2010 where I live, but then died down rapidly when gaming went from a thing kids and nerds did to something that everyone and their mom did.
Haven’t heard any video game scape goating in at least 10 years.
Of course it’s still a thing in the USA. Mass shootings are still a thing in the USA. And most politicians will blame anything and I mean anything to avoid addressing the real problem: the easy access to guns that were designed specifically to kill humans. If the shooter played violent video games, you bet your butt they’re gonna bring that up. It’s more common to go after the mental health of the shooter (while of course voting against any bill that might make access to mental health care easier and more affordable), along with the typical useless “thoughts and… Read more »
Isn’t that just on conservative media though? None of those are really considered trustworthy or credible
Tell that to the millions of people listening to conservative media, which are billion dollar businesses.
Just because people are dumb enough to believe it doesn’t make it true, people still think that republicans are good for the economy even though every economic recession that we’ve had in the last thirty or forty years has been caused by them and their stupid idea that if you give rich people more money that they will just share
If conservative media wasn’t considered trustworthy or credible, we wouldn’t have a felon in the white house now, would we? This is not the world of our fathers and grandfathers. We have corporations who have spent billions on understanding crowd psychology and how to subtly influence people to think and feel and choose one way or the other. Our reliance on the internet for media, and how it uses personalized algorithms to show people news articles, videos, clips, and memes that will resonate with us and drive up engagement, has made it so that people are extremely manipulatable, into thinking… Read more »
Like I said, just because people trust it doesn’t make it credible, we have a guy with brain worms still trying to find evidence of a link between vaccines and autism, people are stupid. Credible doesn’t mean it’s accurate or true, it just means that someone believes in the source of information, also I never said I wasn’t influenced by media that I consume, I just meant that those inbreds believe whatever their favorite talking mouth pieces tell them
As you said. “Credible” doesn’t mean that something IS accurate or not; “credible” is whether it is believed or not. As an example: I do not find the majority of extremist news to be credible. I, me, myself, am making a statement about what I believe. However, you didn’t say “None of those I consider,” you said “none of those *are considered*.” Meaning that you are not speaking anymore about your personal opinion, you are speaking about consensus. To say they are not considered trustworthy or credible, means that somewhere between “practically no one” and “literally no one” is the… Read more »
Fine, it’s not considered credible by people actually familiar with the actual facts or subject matter. Better now?
Yes, because decisions are made *all the time* by people not familiar with the subject matter or actual facts. You handwaved away someone’s frustrations with how media outlets use scapegoating to shift blame, so that real change that could save lives doesn’t happen, with “But that’s just conservative media; that’s not credible or trustworthy.” That statement is only relevant if what you mean by it is that this scapegoating is ineffective because these sources aren’t believed. But they ARE believed. In the immortal words of George Carlin, “think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half… Read more »
That’s why I think people should only be allowed to vote on topics that they’ve shown that they understand enough to actually form an accurate opinion
This thread seems to be mostly about a misunderstanding / mismatch in definitions. Tim uses credible and trustworthy as in “somewhat factually accurate” or “somewhat close to the current state of research”. Basically, a source that is worthy of trust, that delivers useful information. Eldest Gruff on the other hand uses these words as in “something that a lot of people believe or trust in”. Both definitions are correct, but both of them contradict each other in this case. Right-wing media is mostly propaganda and certainly not interested in factual accuracy or delivering quality, useful information. But at the same… Read more »
well, idiots being idiots, that cant be helped. That doesnt mean conservatives medias are trustworthy
like the liberal mainstream media is trustworthy???
Liberal media isn’t the one being found repeatedly in studies to have more people ignorant of issues after watching it than if they watched no media at all, only conservative media has that distinction. I don’t think liberal media is completely trustworthy, but the distinction is pretty clear
The same liberal media that repeats hoaxes like the “Very fine people” BS? Spare us the righteous indignation.
He said very fine people on both sides, the problem is that one of the sides was a group of neonazis
Who he specifically denounced right before he said the “very fine people” part. The actual quote is something along the lines of “…and I’m not talking about the N@zis or white supremacists, because they should be condemned every time…” and so on.
He only said that after because he realized how bad it looks, it sounded like he was giving them a free pass and he kinda was since what the other side was protesting was taking down a statue dedicated to slavery
Why argue about it? You can see the quote for yourselves. Its not as you describe it. https://www.c-span.org/clip/white-house-event/user-clip-trump-blames-both-sides-for-charlottesville-violence/5131704
If you march alongside nazis, you are not a “very fine person”
Thanks for agreeing with Trump.
Even snopes calls you out:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-very-fine-people/
CONTEXT:
In a news conference after the rally protesting the planned removal of a Confederate statue, Trump did say there were “very fine people on both sides,” referring to the protesters and the counterprotesters. He said in the same statement he wasn’t talking about neo-Nazis and white nationalists, who he said should be “condemned totally.”
Maybe we can find a common ground? My mind is very open to the idea that both sides aren’t out for the best of their citizens. Sure I might have a preference to one side, but if I see how the lobby works I think the votes of people is too easily overruled. They give some tokens here and there along the party line, then make some decisions, legal or not, that suspiciously is in great advantage of someone powerful. My two cents? If you think that the politicians have the best intentions for you, you’ve got it wrong. There… Read more »
spotted the mad maga
Obviously, even being far from perfect, cnn isnt lying like foxnews is. That’s a fact, weither you like it or not.
They’re considered credible to the people who watch them and that’s really all that matters. They’ll say it and then millions of people will believe it.
Again, doesn’t make the source credible, just the viewers ignorant
“Interesting” thing – the guns aren’t inherently the problem, but the people who wield them. It’s the whole “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” thing. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be harder to get a gun in the US – I think it absolutely should – but the real problem is all the fear mongering. Libs of TikTok once posted a map of American schools as “sites of Anti-American activity.” People like Michael Knowles and Matt Walsh are telling their listeners all the time that teachers are trans-ing their kids in schools. There’s a general anti-education rhetoric throughout the… Read more »
You know, some years ago I thought that what the US needs to prevent shootings and lower the level of gun violence is stricter gun control. But then I found out that in Switzerland the percentage of weaponry in the hands of civil population is not lower (and I think even higher) than in the US. And still we don’t hear about frequent shootings in that country. so yeah, it seems that the main problem is not in guns, but in heads. :-/ (I must say, I am not an American. European. Own a couple of guns, for sports mainly.… Read more »
Although the problem is partly in the heads, there is a reason guns shouldn’t be allowed for many reasons. In Switzerland and several other countries the guns have a whole other culture behind it. There is much less a self defence culture, and guns are thought of as dangerous things that should be handled with care. There’s emphasis in handling them correctly at all times, and little precedence to use them in defensive scenarios. In short, there is gun control. It just isn’t legislation. Another is the ease. Did you know that the most people in the USA dying from… Read more »
You can’t compare Switzerland with the US, there are massive differences, especially around the gun culture. The reason why Switzerland has a high rate of gun ownership is because every able man is required by law to do military service, and after that they have to do repeat trainings over the next 10 years. And these people are required to keep their service weapon at home, well secured. That’s the difference between Switzerland and the US. A lot of swiss people have guns at home, but these are trained soldiers who got extensive gun safety training, who are regularly inspected… Read more »
The “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” is a rubbish argument. What guns do is allow people to kill and damage over distance in quantity. A gun’s only function is to destroy, it has no other purpose. The UK, where I live, had a school gun massacre in 1996. It led to tighter gun legislation and we have not had a school gun massacre since. People still own guns (my friend has 8!) but they are not easily available over the counter for a couple of hundred pounds to anyone who passes a cursory check. Fear mongering is not… Read more »
multi-billion. but again the mental states of the ones who do this is what needs to be addressed.i might be wrong but all of the public school shootings have been done by someone who went to that school,the ones at universities may not be like that. no one in charge at any level (or the parents) wants to even think american kids may need mental health screenings. its just not going to get done,i mean how can you even begin to help these kids when the school counselors probably are not even allowed to talk to the kids about stuff… Read more »
‘Gargling old piss’ party. Same issue, different day. heaven help them if they are Made to swallow, not spit. Bullets X10 the cost and locked up tighter than legal marijuana or firing pins DNA coded. Easy solve.
That’s not just hyperbole, it’s an outright lie. Just take the Nashville shooter, transman that shot up a catholic school. We can do this all day bub.
It’s certainly not as loud as it used to be, but there are still some people consistently trying to link events like this to video games. It just tends to get quickly buried under all the OTHER scapegoating.
I feel like those voices might be a bit louder in a world that has actual video game themed vigilantes.
Still a thing in France, and I want to murder them for relaying that kind of fake news… Oh wait…
Only in the United States, less often now cause its not being secretly funded by the NRA. NRA used to sponsor groups who were anti-video game violence, like Jack Thompson and other “experts” and trot them out to the news networks. Since all the news outlets were scared to be sued by the NRA… they took the scrapes they offered to fill air time. Nowadays, gun manufacturers earn tonnes of money for licensing their trademarks/copyright on their guns to the big games like Call of Duty etc. and see games effecting weapon sales. They don’t want to bring attention to… Read more »
They literally just did this with Luigi Mangione in December. So yeah, it’s still a thing. (This is from the NYPOST, but many outlets ran with the same “news”)
It is ironic. The amount of violence and death in music, movies, series, and even just the news is easily comparable. In how many movies it is even glorified? How many are more realistic than video games?
Just imagine if they ran with other games in his library.”
“Suspected killer Luigi Mangione spent years training in 1 – vs – 100 death matches on remote island.”
“Suspected killer Luigi Mangione found to be millions of Bells in debt to Tanooki loan shark”
“Suspected killer Luigi Mangione found to have dated, married, and divorced twelve individuals in small valley town; refuses to comment on the dozens of children turned into doves.”
Luckily, that scapegoat is a blast from the past …. i hope ?
Games is already the update.
“Where is a police man
when you need one
to blame the color TV”
Tim shared a screenshot of the NY Times saying that Luigi Mangioni played an assassin game, and that’s why he did what he did.
Well that’s not the direction I was expecting the story to go.
I remember the time before video games when playing D&D and listening to heavy metal music was the scapegoats for something like this.
Yeah, the title of this is making sense now get a feeling someone is gonna have issue with videogame-themed supers in the city.
Oh! So we get the return of this “anti-gaming” guy, whose name I don’t remember but have superspeed and brother killed by gamer?
Now would be the perfect time for Ethan to gamble with his power, put on a jesus outfit, and go fuck with the zealots. Full “mental middle-finger so hard it scratches the itch on your shoulder”. By death 8 he will have an off-shoot cult that would make Josef Seed jealous.
At this rate, I’m just hoping for the apocalypse. My mother’s side came from Germany’s ww2. I have no desire to have similar stories for my children. If conservatives want power so much they think playing gestapo is a good idea, trying to nominate a pope to shield their actions, taking basic rights from others… burn it to core so even prepper bunkers are vaporized. Turn this shitshow into a fireworks show that would make 4th of july ones feel limp.
😐
Amongus
Can’t believe no one has dropped this one in here yet.
Video games don’t cause violence. Lag does.
I thought people nowadays cared more about which political party the criminal voted for rather than video games.
I find this storyline has a funny little irony here. On one hand, there’s what Lucas is saying in panel 2, which echoes my own frustration at how we (that is, American culture, sorry, rest of the world) just refuse to actually do anything to stop the violence; especially when the most obvious answer is gun control. On the other hand… well, “Vigilante superheroes hiding amongst the people, springing forth to stop crime,” really isn’t all that different from “The answer to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” And yeah, they could register… Read more »
I don’t think that’s a good, or fair, comparison. It only sort of holds up in the vaguest hypothetical lines, and it simply doesn’t match with the actual situation. In terms of stopping crime, the biggest problem with the ‘good man with a gun’ argument is how it’s demonstrably not true. Countless people currently have guns, and all it does is enable the shootings, without any of the supposed ‘good men’ doing anything to stop them. On the other hand, the vigilante superheroes (in these stories at least) DO actually stop crime. And they don’t cause the myriad of random… Read more »
To remember that Tim writes these comics WAYYY in advance, and it could coincide with a shooting…
I just…
In America, shootings are not hard to accidentally coincide with. Collegehumor joked about abc ceo needing to block airing “School Shooter Shooter”. Ask Australians what happened after their big shooting.
Yep. We took swift and decisive action, the politicians actually worked for the people (for once), and we haven’t had anything nearly as bad since. Yes, there has still been some gun violence (like the police killed a couple of Decembers ago in QLD), but the fact that those stories are so shocking and rare speaks volumes to the efficacy of our gun laws. It won’t be easy to fix in America. Yes, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”, but why let people have guns so easily, if they’re just going to use them to kill others? Yes, Switzerland… Read more »
Oh yes. Place the blame on video games all over again. *sigh*
Not that I WANT this to happen, but I can already feel the Ethan gets Shot! cliffhanger happening. They go out, try to stop a shooter, Ethan gets shot, switches to the Players for a while, and the next part will be Ethan in a hospital recovering from the wound, which would make Lucas sure he didn’t have his powers back, maybe go on for 3-4 pages with Ethan slowly getting better. Then one day just appears back home, fully better due to infinite continues power. When asked, he really needed to pee, tried to get up carefully, but forgot… Read more »
I’m not going to address… most of that. But one thing; Ethan doesn’t respawn back in their home, he respawns moments before he died.
I was TWELVE (12) years old the first time I got swept up in this kind of scapegoating 😀
It wasn’t the nerds, it isn’t the nerds, and it will never be the nerds.
ooh hello Jack Thompson… glad to see your still somewhat relevant.
XKCD has a delightful comic on the blame game through history. First it was books, then it was newspaper, then it was music. Video games are just the latest excuse to keep from admitting that some just aren’t right in the head. (Sadly, most of the time it’s how people are raised.)
Some of the time, at least. Majority of the latest cases I’ve seen have been people with legit mental health issues (diagnosed or otherwise) getting their hands on legally owned guns that were otherwise secure because they belonged to family members.
Interesting that they never did VR in that fashion.
As a general rule, thoughts and prayers in the face of a tragedy get some unfair criticism. I understand that some might see it as a trite, empty, or meaningless phrase because … quite simply … that phrase is the only thing that happens to be seen. When a person is feeling angry, or raw, or morally outraged about something they feel is important? They are (at best) annoyed, and (at worst) even angrier when they see a bunch of other people repeating a comment that the angry person has chosen to believe is token and vapid. But there’s no… Read more »